Inalienable Rights
by NorthOfNever
Summary: Clark's secret reaches dangerous ears as his life begins to unravel after an ill-fated visit to Dr. Swann. Clois and Chlark. COMPLETED!
1. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

"Over my dead body!" Jonathan yelled, spouting yet another time-worn cliché with his usual braggadocio and flannel swagger.

"Well, it just might be that way if I don't go!" Clark's eyes blazed with his temper - something not to be taken lightly with Clark. He had drawn himself up to his full height to stare Jonathan down, and father and son now stood glaring at each other with the sofa serving as a demure boundary between them, from which Martha Kent launched herself into parental high-gear.

"Clark Kent, you do not talk to your father that way!" She planted her feet and her resolve firmly on the floor. "Now you apologize this minute! What a thing to say, after we almost lost him!" Martha's eyes welled with tears as she put a hand over her mouth and sank back o the forgiving sofa.

Clark's expression softened, but not before throwing one sharp glance at Jonathan to remind him that the matter was not settled. "I'm sorry, Mom, I didn't mean - " he sat gingerly on the couch next to Martha, just as she bit off his words.

"That was just callous, Clark, and uncalled for." She didn't take any guff lately, not from anyone. She'd had her fill of passivity and patience, playing the docile wife and mother while she was always screaming inside. Clark's return after three months' absence somewhere beyond the walls of the Kawatchee cave had triggered something in her - a strength she didn't know she had, something that would drive her to defend those she loved at all costs, no matter how much they drove her crazy. It also meant she didn't feel the need to keep quiet and let the boys duke it out anymore while she interjected with news from the constantly ringing phone.

Clark pulled back his hand, which had been reaching for his mother's shoulder, and let himself fall back against the couch. He winced and bit his lip guiltily when he heard something splinter under the upholstery. Martha turned slowly, eyed Clark's apologetic expression and the now-sagging sofa - an innocent bystander wounded by family drama.

Martha turned away again and pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead. "I think he should go, Jonathan."

Clark jumped up and stood awkwardly, trying not to bump into anything. "I'm sorry about the couch, Mom. And I'm sorry about what I said, it's just that Dad can't handle the farm alone, and if I can just get all these questions taken care of then I can spend more time helping around here. I don't just want to go for myself. Don't you guys want all this stuff over with?"

"Don't worry about the couch, Clark." Martha couldn't respond to the rest of Clark's plea, because the truth was she already knew much more than she wanted to. She had always been curious about her son's origins, but the old adage "curiosity killed the cat" was proving true - at least for her. Only it wasn't killing the cat, it was killing her spirit. She pleaded with herself every day to stop asking questions - to stop wanting answers, because every time she got what she thought she wanted, she felt like she lost Clark a little more. The day that Clark told her about his first memory - of Lara, his biological mother - a small piece of her hope crumbled away. She knew that as long as Clark remained, a bit of her would stay with him, even if only in some small, almost forgotten way. It was her own personal passage to immortality. But the question was, would Clark remain?

"First of all, Son," Jonathan began, famously obtuse. "It's not your responsibility to worry about how this farm gets by, it's mine."

_What does that even mean?_ Clark rolled his eyes. "What are you talking about? Of course it's my responsibility. This farm has been in your family for generations - when did your dad ever say 'Son, the work on this farm isn't your responsibility, it's mine.' That's just crap, Dad! Why are you always saying stuff like that?"

Jonathan was speechless - a rarity - and stared agape at his son. Some deep part of him was proud of Clark's sense of duty and family loyalty, but a bigger part of him - a part that dwelled much nearer the surface of his so-called thick skin and therefore was always at-the-ready, burned with what he felt at the time was righteous indignation. "Sounds like none of us are mincing words tonight."

Clark resisted the urge to hit a wall in frustration. "Well, some of us aren't."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Jonathan spat, rolling up his flannel sleeves in true bar-room brawl fashion.

"That's the point, Dad, it meant something - it wasn't just talking for the sake of having something to say. Lately it's like you're never really talking to me, you're trying to sum things up in a neat little package of words that - well, first of all, is impossible to respond to, and secondly, has no meaning whatsoever. Half the time I stand there feeling stupid because I have no idea what the hell you just said, or why you said. You just… you say these things that I get the impression are supposed to make everything clear, or easy to understand, or whatever, but they just feel… empty. Like you're talking through me or something." Clark let the last few words tumble along with the tone if his voice and dropped his eyes to the floor.

So rarely did he really speak out against Jonathan, and when he did he always felt treacherous, as if on some level Jonathan was keeping score between himself and Jor-El as to which father had let Clark down more.

Jonathan was keeping score, and was beginning to feel as if he'd pulled into the lead and was seriously over par. He tried so hard - too hard, he knew - to guide Clark and advise him, and his intended pearls of wisdom often felt more like balls of wet dough. He would grin and chuckle and try to toss off the awkwardness left in the wake of his platitudes, but he couldn't curb the impulse.

"I don't have time for this," Jonathan huffed and grabbed his coat as he headed out the door, although it was too hot for even the flannel he was wearing.

"Of course you don't have time, this whole farm is your responsibility alone, right? You have a lot of work to do, and those cows aren't going to feed themselves. It's nobody's job to help you, especially mine." Clark almost regretted the words, but he too was tired of hiding under surfaces. The summer had changed a lot of things, and hollow pleasantries were the least of them.

Jonathan threw his coat on the floor and stomped his boots as he lumbered up to Clark. "You want to say that again, Son?"

_Funny how terms of endearment can sound like acid when their use changes_. Clark shrugged and looked away from his father's piercing stare. "I just… I wanted you to say something real."

Jonathan nodded and wordlessly turned his back to Clark. "Something real, huh?" He paused and nodded again, apparently agreeing with the direction his subconscious was taking. "How's this for real? I have no idea what the hell to say to you. Happy? You come at me with these insane issues and I'm supposed to know how to deal with them? Things nobody on this planet knows anything about? I'm a damn farmer - I know working for a living, earning and saving and paying your dues. I haven't had a lot practice with fatherhood on even a normal scale, so forgive me, Son, for not knowing exactly how to play this game. This is no 'boogeyman in my closet' or 'monster under my bed' parenting, Clark. This is just one simple guy trying to do something that frankly, scares the hell out of him and he has no clue how to do it."

Clark swallowed to try and clear the lump in his throat, and Martha dabbed at a tear clinging to her chin with a tissue.

"I didn't know you felt like that," Clark whispered.

"Well, no, you wouldn't, because the one thing I do know how to do is put on a brave face, so I did." Jonathan shrugged and picked up his coat again. "Now I have work to do. The cows really aren't going to feed themselves."

. . . 

Clark absent-mindedly packed a small week-ender with the essentials as he mulled over what Jonathan had said. In the five-hour interval between now and then, neither had spoken to the other, which frustrated Clark because it was just more of the same non-communication. It wasn't quite as bad as the usual stream of well-intended nothings that were usually shoveled around the Kent farm as often as fertilizer, but it still left him uneasy.

"I don't know where you're going, but wherever that is - do you really think you're going to need _Third Grade Penmanship, Second Edition_?" Lois was leaning idly in the frame of his bedroom door, looking like she herself was ready to go somewhere.

Clark glanced sheepishly at the books in his hand, one of which was indeed his old handwriting workbook. "Yeah, I guess my mind was wandering." He gave Lois a once-over as subtly as an eighteen-year-old small-town boy could. _Now it's wandering in a different direction_… He eyed the suitcase at her feet. "Are you leaving?"

She nodded and tried to appear nonchalant as she peered into the bag Clark was packing. "Yeah, now that Chloe and I have had a chance to catch up, and - well, she's not dead anymore, so I guess I'm not investigating her murder…" Lois trailed off. _Since when does a Kansas farm boy make me trip over my words_? "Well, I have to get back to Metropolis, so… yeah." _Oh, shut up, it's getting worse_!

Clark smiled. "Maybe I'll see you there sometime." _Smooth, Kent. You're slick as cracked cement_.

Lois nodded again. "Yeah, of course, and I'm sure I'll be here to visit, since my cousin's… not dead… yeah." _If I don't trip over another sentence and die of a head wound, that is_. "So where are you going?"

"Metropolis, actually," Clark replied honestly before thinking better of it. He bit his lip and placed the penmanship book back on his bottom shelf. "This is what happens when you never throw anything away," he said, trying to change the subject and gesturing to the tattered book. _What happens, exactly? You pack strangely? Get up and practice cursive in the middle of the night? Accidentally set it on fire? What the hell am I talking about_?

Lois, either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, missed the pack-rat comment altogether and zeroed in on Clark's destination. "Metropolis? What for? Are you leaving now?" _Need a place to stay_?

"Just visiting some old friends," Clark offered as vaguely as possible. "I'm leaving in about ten minutes. Are you leaving now too?" _Please say no… or yes… no, you better say no._

"Ah, well, I am taking my leave of the Kent farm, but I'm having dinner with Chloe before I head back. Are you taking the bus? If you want to wait a little while you can go with me."

Clark grimaced. "Well, thanks, really, but I do have to go now. I'm already getting kind of a late start." _Why do I even want to go with her? Well, okay, there's the obvious, but then there's Lana… but why_? "So yeah, sorry, but I'll have to pass."

Lois nodded yet again with a wry smile, sensing some inner dialog that precipitated the slightly guilty expression on Clark's face. She guessed it wasn't quite as chaste as his actions usually were. "Well, look me up while you're there, if you have time." She tore a piece of paper from a conveniently placed notepad and scrawled her phone number on it before handing it to Clark. "You know, if you want to, and you're not busy."

_If I want to_? "Thanks," Clark managed, looking over Lois' head and stuffing the paper in his jeans pocket. Awkward silence ensued, with another nod from Lois. "Well, I should go - "

"Yeah!" Lois agreed, a little too brightly. "Yeah, me too." She picked up her suitcase and started out the door.

"Hey, let me get that," Clark offered and lunged for the suitcase, but Lois pulled it back.

"Very chivalrous, Clark, but I got it. I manage to get by in Metropolis with no hay-balin' muscle to carry my suitcases."

Clark held up his hands in submission. "Sorry - didn't mean to tread on your sense of feminism."

Lois raised her left eyebrow quizzically. "Well, zinger from the farmer's son. You're just full of surprises, aren't you Clark?"

Clark shifted uncomfortably and slung his own bag over his shoulder. "Not really," he shrugged.

Lois' quizzical expression narrowed into a shrewd visual assessment. "Now, you don't expect me to believe that, do you? Everybody has their secrets." She was halfway down the stairs, calling back over her shoulder, when she wheeled around to face Clark again. "So what's yours, Clark?"

Clark shrugged again and was struggling for an answer while he shifted the bag to his other shoulder.

Lois stepped closer, her face only inches away, her expression accusatory. "You use synthetic nutrients on the organic produce, don't you?"

Clark laughed, simultaneously relieved and amused. "No, of course not, it's all-natural." He slipped past her and let out the breath he'd been holding when his first foot hit the landing. "Have a nice dinner with Chloe," he called, and disappeared through the front door.

Lois took one more step before her heavy suitcase got the better of her and crashed to the bottom of the stairs, its latch broken and its contents splayed across the Kents' entryway. "Well, crap."

. . .

In truth, the way he was traveling Clark had more than enough time to get to Metropolis, but there was something he needed to do first. Jonathan was mending yet another fence post when Clark approached him.

"Dad?" Clark was tentative.

"You leaving now?" The absence of the usual "Son" that followed most of Jonathan's addresses to Clark carried its intended sting.

"Yes."

"Good."

"Dad, I -"

"I meant good, so you can get some answers. Sorry, I just learned I don't communicate very well.

Clark ran his hand through his hair and scratched his head. "Dad, that's not what I meant. I just… could you stop that for a minute and listen to me?"

Jonathan exhaled heavily and set his tools aside, peeling off his work gloves. He and Clark stood silently for a moment, until Jonathan raised his hands in an expectant gesture. "Whenever you're ready," he said, and crossed his arms over his chest.

Clark nodded and rooted his gaze to the patches of brown earth that showed through the grass. "I never meant to make you feel like I didn't - like I don't - appreciate what you do and the advice you give. I know this isn't easy, and that there's nobody you can turn to for help in raising a kid like me."

Jonathan remained stony and silent.

"It's just that, this is where I belong," Clark continued, "no matter what Jor-El says. I've decided to believe that, I've decided to be Clark Kent, and I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't been raised by somebody who taught me what the value of life is. I don't understand what Jor-El is trying to teach me and I'm not sure that I want to, but I do understand what you try to tell me - I just get frustrated because you hardly ever really say it. I know you want to say things so that they stick, and you think it means more if you can phrase it like a proverb or something, but all I really need is to hear it like you mean it. "

Jonathan shook his head. "I know that, and I suppose I always have, I just don't know how to do it I guess. I don't know why, it's just - it's easier to keep talking like I have all the answers than it is to admit that I really don't have any. Not for you."

Clark smiled wanly. "That's okay, Dad, really. I just need you to be real, because to be honest…" Clark trailed off, hesitant to continue.

"What?"

Clark shook his head. "No, it's… it's no big deal."

Now it was Jonathan's turn to get frustrated. "What, after all this talk about how important it is to be straightforward and say what we mean, you're not going to even say what this is really all about?"

Clark's features contorted in a blend of remorse and indignation. "It's because you're _fading_, Dad!" Jor-El, if nothing else, is pretty straight with me - he's never hiding behind what he thinks I want to hear. And you - well, you talk in circles so much lately that the real you feels lost, and I honestly can't hold on to my dad when he's creating all this distance. I know it's not on purpose, but Dad… Okay, the bottom line is, Jor-El is trying to pull me closer and you're pushing me away. That's the last thing I want, but - it's really hard to fight."

It wasn't often that Clark really looked defeated, and when he did it was wrenching to see. Jonathan was at a loss for words, an increasingly frequent condition. It was so easy to forget that, despite all the things he could do, he was fundamentally just a kid who was trying to figure himself out, on a purely human level. Jonathan had been so focused on his inadequacy in understanding Clark's extra-terrestrial beginnings, he often took for granted Clark's undeniable humanity.

"I'm sorry, Son," Jonathan whispered, embracing him and clapping him on the shoulder. "I really don't know what else to say right now, but I am sorry."

Clark hugged his father back. "That's enough."

Jonathan stepped back and regarded his son. "You're sure about this? These tests?"

Clark smiled. Honest feelings evidently lead to faster recovery as far as Jonathan Kent was concerned. "Yeah, well, I think Dr. Swann is right. If something really does happen to me, what can I do? You remember what happened with Helen Bryce. I can't really risk seeing a conventional doctor. I know you're not crazy about his whole team knowing my secret, but since they already know I may as well find out if they can help me."

Jonathan tugged his gloves back over his calloused hands and resumed his work on the wire fence. "They know because Swann told them, after he swore that he'd keep your secret."

"Yeah, I'm not thrilled about that either, but he only shared it with trusted members of his medical team who he thought could help me."

"He should have asked first."

"Yeah, I agree, but we can't change that now."

"I just don't like the idea that someone you trusted has had a team secretly studying you for months."

Clark paused for a moment before continuing. "I just need to do this, Dad. You can understand that, right?"

Jonathan looked up again. "Yes, I suppose I can, but I still don't have to like it."

Clark smiled. "See, honesty's not so bad."

Jonathan chuckled. "Yeah, we'll see if you still feel that way the next time I get a call about you skipping class."

Clark looked incredulous. "I thought you said you didn't mind because of - well, it's usually an emergency."

"For the sake of others, I don't mind, but as a father - eh, I lied." 


	2. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Clark fought to maintain his composure as his feet slapped the sidewalk, drawing him closer to the inconspicuous private labs of Dr. Virgil Swann. He'd arrived in Metropolis hours ago, but was really in no hurry to check in. They were operating on his timetable, and he felt a little guilty for making them wait, but he couldn't persuade his nerves to settle and he didn't want to face this group of strangers with uncertainty. He felt like he had big expectations to fill - he always felt that way - and didn't want to appear as the frightened country boy that he really was.

He had almost quelled his anxiety when a familiar voice pierced his adolescent paranoia.

"Clark!"

He raised his eyes to meet Lois, who was crossing over to him from the other side of the busy street, daring the traffic not to stop for her and her duct-taped suitcase. "Lois… hi?" Clark responded, inexplicably quizzical.

Lois looked amused. "You can't be that surprised to see me, Clark. I do live here."

Clark shrugged and donned his best false-confidence demeanor. "Well yeah, but it's a big city." He suddenly seemed to find the toes of his workboots absolutely enthralling.

Lois nodded and smiled. "Yes, indeed it is, but this is my street. My block, to be more precise. And, since we've gone that far, let's finish the race. You're standing in front of my building. Hardly a coincidence, I think, since I did give you my address."

Clark looked absolutely befuddled. "Your address?"

"I wrote it down and handed it to you. In person. Myself. On your own paper. You put it in your pocket. You were there, remember? Third grade penmanship? You made a pass at my suitcase?"

Clark suddenly reanimated. "Yeah, of course I remember, I just - I didn't look at it…" he pulled the slip of paper from his pocket. "Until now. I thought it was just your phone number."

Lois gave Clark a sideways smile and gave her suitcase a nudge toward the door. "So, you didn't see my address, and you happened to turn up here at my front door just as I'm getting home?"

"Some coincidence, huh?" Clark shrugged it off and Lois raised her eyebrows. "What?"

"Nothing," Lois answered. "Just - like you said - it's a big city." She pulled the door open and turned back to Clark, suddenly coy. "Do you want to come in?"

Clark swallowed his breath along with his first impulse. "Um, no, I should be going, I'm already late. Well, more late - I was late already, and now I'm… I'm more late. Yeah." _Way to go, you're off to a great stop. Although she did invite you in… no, stop there, keep walking…_.

"Well, can you give me a hand with my suitcase?"

Clark's grin spread over his face with the electricity that comes with a biting comeback. "You've managed without hay-balin' muscle this long, right? I wouldn't dream of it." He turned his back to her and continued down the street, simultaneously triumphant and embarrassed. _Now she thinks I'm an ass._

A somewhat dissimilar thought about Clark's ass passed through Lois' mind as she watched him walk away, but was quickly overwhelmed - or coupled with - an intense curiosity about where he was going and what he was really doing there. Instinct told her that something about "visiting old friends" just didn't fly - not for a fourth-generation small-town Kansas farmer, alone in Metropolis. She quickly stowed her suitcase in a closet near the door and set out after Clark.

. . .

You wouldn't guess from looking at the exterior of Kim's Handmade Furniture and Antiquities that a network of highly advanced laboratories was housed in and around its foundation. That of course was the point, although until now there was no real purpose for the secrecy other than Dr. Swann's slightly eccentric tendencies. An unassuming door in the small office in the back opened into what first appeared to be only a storage room for broken pieces and works-in-progress, but also served as a passage into the bowels of the building - where its real function lived. The entrance was reached by stepping through an old wardrobe with the backing removed, and into an elevator. Clark wasn't sure all of this was necessary, and couldn't judge whether he found it amusing or disquieting.

"Ah, Clark, we were beginning to think you'd changed your mind," Dr. Swann greeted with only slight agitation when the elevator door opened, revealing the central hub of the facility's nervous system. A bank of surveillance monitors lined one wall, and the wall opposite it was crowded with Cray supercomputers. A long conference table dominated the center of the room, the head of which was without a chair and clearly intended only for Dr. Swann.

"I'm sorry," Clark replied absently, taking in the scene. He was acutely uncomfortable. Although the lab was expectedly cold and clinical, he hadn't anticipated how much dread it would instill, bringing to mind his experiences at Summerholt. "I sort of got a late start."

"Did you run here?"

. . .

_Did he run here?_ Lois chuckled silently to herself. _Not unless he left two days ago and drank a case of Red Bull. Or maybe two_. She had debated crawling into the conveniently located duct to the left of the armoire in the storage room, but having come this far she decided to let her curiosity guide her. She couldn't see anything, but she could make out voices.

"Yeah - " she heard Clark reply.

"Well then you should have been here hours ago, right? Your parents said you left at four, it's now almost ten." This was a new voice, insistent and a bit whiny, both of which seemed to annoy Clark. It certainly annoyed Lois.

"You called my parents?"

"Well you didn't show, we were getting anxious - " The new voice was defensive.

"Look, I don't have to do this. If I'm supposed to trust you - "

"Don't mind Dr. Ripley, Kal-El. He gets a little over-anxious." It was the first voice again - knowledgeable, almost serene.

There was a brief silence, heavy with discomfort. Then Clark spoke.

"Please, don't call me that. I asked you not to call me that."

Lois desperately wished she could see through the dusty metal to get a look at the expression that accompanied the quiet insistence of those words. _Why is he calling him that anyway_?

The serene voice continued. "Fair enough," he said, but with enough amusement to insinuate he knew something that Clark didn't - or just refused. "Well, despite Dr. Ripley's glowing first impression, you'll want to know who the rest of these people are. Dr. Bridgette Crosby will be supervising the entire process in my stead, as I can only do so much." He gestured with his chair to a smallish, dark-haired woman with determined features and a smart, black suit. She stood out against the rest of the team, which all donned white lab coats. "I'm sure Martha told you she came to help when you returned." Clark nodded politely, but with apparent reservation.

Lois couldn't even see him, but she could detect his apprehension. _What is going on here? What process? Clark walks into a wardrobe and what - now he's in Narnia? What is a farm kid doing in a place like this, with secret entrances and a bunch of doctors_?

"This, again, is Dr. Ethan Ripley. He's obsessive and overzealous, but he's the best at what he does. He'll be testing your fluids and tissues against known viral and bacterial threats, how they react to various chemical stimuli, as well as their regenerative capability." Dr. Ripley looked a little out of place, more like an athlete than a biogeneticist. "I can see the red flags going up, but don't worry - no tests will be performed on you directly until we're satisfied via abducted trials that they will be of no risk to you. Of course, we'd have to conduct direct testing at a later date, because that kind of assurance will take some time."

_Regenerative capability_? Lois tried to convince herself that she was hearing things. _This just keeps getting weirder and more Roswell_.

"Dr. Andrea Prescott will oversee general diagnostics, primarily testing the limitations of your various abilities. We're especially interested in seeing if anything other than lead interferes with your x-ray vision, and can therefore possibly protect you from Kryptonite. Eventually we hope to really study the limits of your strength and heat vision, but at present we are at a loss for the appropriate trials. We have a few frequency tests in mind for your hearing, but I must confess we're most excited about this latest development."

"What development?" Clark queried.

"We'll come back to that."

"Dr. Swann - "

"Let's finish with the introductions, first." Dr. Swann wheeled his chair across the room to the last as-yet-anonymous member of his research team. "This is Marin Blake. Technically not yet a doctor, because we recruited her before she finished, but she's been invaluable in her assistance to Drs. Ripley and Prescott. She did much of the designing and construction of the trials, and she'll be compiling and analyzing the data."

Marin smiled shyly. "I'm finishing school via correspondence."

Clark gave her a no and a half-smile before turning back to Dr. Swann. "Now, what do you mean, latest development?"

Dr. Swann smiled and waited, presumably for effect. "Why, your flying, of course."

_Flying_? Okay, x-ray vision, heat vision, super strength - and evidently speed, since they assume he ran to Metropolis - that all sent Lois reeling enough, but _flying_? Horrified at the gasp she felt rising in her throat, Lois tried to clap a hand over her mouth to suppress it, but it was too late.

Clark didn't need any special hearing to know something was in the duct overhead, especially now that that something had started to scramble for an escape, and quickly concentrated his vision to scan through the metal. "There's somebody in there!" He cried, and turned to force open the elevator doors. He pushed through the ceiling hatch and leapt up to the secret wardrobe entrance, slipping out the door just in time to see Lois tumble out of the low-set vent, coughing and brushing dust out of her hair.

"Lois!" Clark exclaimed, half perplexed and half enraged.

Lois stood, trying to control the wobble of her knees and appear as if it were perfectly natural for her to be crawling out of ventilation shafts near the entrances of secret labs. "Now this," she paused to catch her breath, "is a coincidence."

. . .

Lois tried to twist out of Clark's grip on her arm as they waited for the elevator to appear beyond the wardrobe. "Can you loosen up a little, please? Your hand is like a vise. Not that I really know, 'cause I've ever really used a vise, just the simile."

The blazing glare accompanied by blistering silence that Clark almost tangibly threw at her shut Lois up, at least momentarily. Levity clearly wasn't going to get her out of this scrape. "Look, Clark, I'm sorry I followed you."

"You should be!" He shouted, more fiery than she'd expected. She had always suspected it took something pretty significant to get a rise out of mild-mannered Clark Kent, and - well, she supposed sneaking into a hidden facility's ductwork to overhear that he might be some kind of mutant was fairly significant. "You shouldn't have come here, you - why did you follow me?"

Lois winced as his grip tightened. "Ouch, Clark! Seriously, I'm going to have a little trouble answering if I'm distracted by a broken arm."

Clark relented slightly in his grasp, but not in his temper. "Cut the banter, Lois. I want to know what you're doing here, what you heard, and I want to know now. Don't leave anything out. Where the hell is the elevator?"

The usual barrage of ready-to-fly quips that Lois kept on the tip of her tongue was noticeably absent in the heat of Clark's anger, and given what she had just learned about him, Lois feared that she'd made a grave mistake in treating the matter so lightly at first. What was he, after all? What had she discovered? What might he do to protect his secret?

Suddenly fearful, Lois tried to backpedal. "I didn't really hear anything, I swear, - well, I heard something about flying, I think - but he was kidding right? In a 'Red Bull gives you wings' sort of way?" She tried to smile charmingly, despite her trembling jaw. "Does it really matter what I heard?"

The elevator rose behind them then, and Clark guided her inside. "Since it looks like I can't trust you, yes, it matters," he hissed. "Chloe used to pry into my life too, you know. As close as you two are supposed to be, I thought she might have mentioned that I really, _really_ don't like it." The elevator was taking excessive liberties about moving, as if time were a luxury it had in Luthorian proportions.

_That doesn't make it sound like I'm getting out of here in one piece._ "Clark, I can't tell you how sorry I am, really - how was I supposed to know I was going to overhear something like _that_? I thought I'd catch you dropping in on a girl, or something - I don't know!"

Clark tossed her arm away from him, as if touching her burned him now. "Why should it matter to you if I was? What business is it of yours where I go, or what I do there?"

Lois felt hot tears rising, but fought them back indignantly. "None whatsoever, Clark. I just thought you were somebody that - evidently - you're not, and yes, I'm sorry - again, I'm _sorry, sorry, sorry,_ but I was curious, okay? About that guy I thought you were." Lois was getting really worked up now, half confessing and half defending herself, and the tears were no longer hiding behind indignation. She was scared and frantic, and really thought she'd wandered on stage in the middle of her own curtain call. "Damn, you got me! I admit it, I'm a hot-blooded American girl, and I was following a boy who caught my eye. Really diabolical of me, I know." She wiped away a trail of mascara and hoped that Clark couldn't tell her nose was running. She hated crying in front of people - or whatever Clark was.

Clark observed Lois in silence as she slumped against the opposite wall, looking uncharacteristically hopeless. "You often snag a date by hiding in a ventilation shaft?"

The venom had left his voice, so Lois raised her eyes again, hoping that might mean she'd make it through this misadventure. "No… it's murder on the hair. Plus the light is really unflattering."

Clark smiled in spite of himself. "Well, your sense of humor's still intact, so no permanent damage."

"Not yet," Lois snarked before she could stop herself.

Clark straightened up and leveled his gaze at her. "Lois, don't act like you didn't get yourself into this. That said, nobody's going to hurt you. I don't really know what we're going to do, but - look, I know that none of this really makes sense, and it's going to get weirder before it does makes sense, but I promise you'll be okay."

Lois wiped her eyes and searched her pockets for a tissue. "So, ah - this whole 'Real World' moment - can I plead temporary insanity and a little amnesia to go with it? Help yourself to some of that amnesia, actually… yeah." _Oh, if I could ever take back words - and actions - now would be a great time_.

Clark tilted his head to one side and gave Lois a lingering, unblinking look - a look that left her feeling deliciously unsettled. "I'm not sure," he shrugged. "There were one or two things you said that, uh - I think might stick."

Lois caught her breath, hoping in vain that she could pause time along with it. She straightened up and braced herself against the wall, letting her imagination give in to the thousand mini fantasies that sprung up to fit the moment, and Clark took a step toward her.

Then he stopped. "Why isn't the elevator going anywhere?"

Lois slumped again. _Well, that was almost beautiful._ "You, um - you forgot to push the button." _Damn, stupid meddling button. You and Shakespearan friars - you all must die!_ She mournfully watched Clark push the offending button. _Well, I'm not dying at least. I'm momentarily chaste, but alive._

Clark, Lois, and the elevator descended together into uncomfortable silence, until Clark broke it.

"You - um, probably should let me do the talking at first."

Lois nodded. "Yeah, probably."

The doors slid open, revealing Dr. Swann and his fantastic four, curious ducks all in a row.

"Uh, hi," Lois said meekly, despite Clark's warning. "I - uh, I'm Lois Lane." She held out her hand, in a gesture that she hoped carried an "I come in peace" effect, without saying something so cliché.

Marin Blake broke rank and stepped forward, a bright smile on her face and her own arm outstretched. "Nice to meet you, Miss Lane," she greeted, taking Lois' hand firmly in hers.

Lois smiled in return, but her smile quickly twisted into a grimace of pain when Marin pushed up Lois' sleeve and plunged a needle into her forearm. 


	3. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

"What did you do?" Clark cried, pushing Marin back and lunging to catch Lois as she sank to the floor, sputtering and gasping for air. He caught her and held her with one hand behind her head, trying to keep her conscious. "_What did you do_?" he repeated urgently, glaring at Marin with a hatred wrought only by perceived betrayal. Lois suddenly stopped struggling and lay still, her slightly open lids revealing her eyes had retreated backward.

Marin had capped the needle and stepped away, putting the conference table between herself and Clark. "I had to Clark, she - "

"She's just a girl!" He bellowed. "She made a mistake! There's no reason you had to do something like that!" He barely nudged the long table, but nonetheless sent it sailing against the far wall. "What did you do to her?" The others in the room looked on in apparent shock, or at least in a stupor.

Marin backed up against the security monitors and held out her hands defensively as Clark advanced on her, his eyes piercing her as they grew hot and vengeful. "Stop! Clark, calm down, just listen, she'll be fine!"

Clark tore the syringe from Marin's hand and held her against the monitors with one arm. "What is this?" He held it up so that the pale blue liquid inside caught the light.

Marin struggled to regain her composure enough to reply, her breath coming in short, nervous gasps. "It's - it's a sedative… we were - we were developing it as a general anesthetic, but discovered an unexepected side effect." She managed one deep, labored breath. "It's called EF-19, still in testing stages technically, but its effects are well documented and predictable."

Clark did not relinquish his hold on her. "And what are those effects?"

Marin coughed. "In small injected doses, it behaves pretty much like Novacaine. If you inject a larger amount directly into the bloodstream, it causes temporary loss of consciousness and it keeps the brain from permanently storing memories manufactured in the two to three hours before it was administered."

"And what will happen to her when it wears off?" Clark gestured to Lois, crumpled in a heap on the floor with Dr. Crosby and Dr. Prescott tending to her.

"Nothing," Marin replied insistently. "She'll wake up with what feels like a moderate hangover, at the most. No permanent effects, other than the memory loss."

Clark eyed her critically. "You're sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure, I was one of the test subjects. Can you let me go now?"

Clark assessed her suspiciously and then stepped back, offering the syringe. Marin pocketed it and slipped around him, being careful not to turn her back. "I had to, Clark. It's part of my job to keep your secret safe. She just knew too much. But she will be okay."

Clark stood back and nodded, then sheepishly pushed the conference table back the center of the room before approaching Lois again. He knelt beside her and automatically checked her pulse.

"She's stable, Clark. Don't worry," Dr. Crosby said with a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "She'll be fine, but we have to get her out of here. Do you know where she lives?"

"Yeah," Clark replied distractedly. "Just down the block, actually."

"Good," interjected Dr. Swann, speaking for the first time since Lois arrived. "Clark, you should get her home before the sedative wears off. "Marin, you help him."

Clark raised a hand to object. "I don't need any help, and I can do it faster by myself."

"No doubt that you can, Clark, but in Miss Lane's condition I hardly think she should be traveling in hyperspeed, and a lone man carrying an unconscious woman may arouse more suspicion than I, for one, would be comfortable with. Especially given that she's been injected with a drug developed well below the FDA's radar. Sorry, Clark, but Marin's going with you."

. . .

Clark carried Lois down a long corridor that ran the length of the building to another elevator. Marin walked ahead of him, trying not to look nervous. She pressed a button on the wall and stepped inside the car, waiting for Clark to follow. "This is how Dr. Swann comes and goes," she said quietly.

"Okay," Clark answered with a bemused nod.

"Just trying to make conversation," Marin shrugged and punched the button for the ground floor with less gentleness than her tone implied.

Clark drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly. "You know, I'm not really feeling very chatty."

Marin fell silent until the doors opened on a small garage. "Should we take her in the car?"

Clark shook his head. "She lives less than a block away, it's easier if I just carry her."

"Okay." Marin thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket and followed Clark down the sidewalk. She concentrated on the rhythm of his steps in hopes of slowing her heartbeat, but being near Clark Kent did little to make her girlish fantasies subside. Were he anyone other than Clark Kent, the rapid thump in her chest would have remained her secret, but she knew that on this almost silent street at this hour, with little distraction, the pumping of her blood betrayed her.

Clark turned his head and looked back at her for a moment, either puzzled or intrigued, then he stopped in front of pair of thick glass doors. "This is it."

Marin pulled the handle. "It's locked. Is there a key on her?"

"I - uh, I don't know, I didn't check."

"Nevermind, there's a doorman."

A twenty-something with a limp and a comic book came to the door. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, please," Marin spoke up. "Our friend lives here - she had a little too much fun at a back-to-school party, and we're the designated - uh - carriers. "

Clark allowed Lois' head to loll back enough to show her face, and the doorman grinned in recognition, a little too carnally for Clark's taste.

"Oh yeah, Lois. She was at a party? Thought she was out of town." He tossed his comic on a nearby bench and unlocked the door. "She's a tough one to keep an eye on."

Clark suspected the doorman frequently had an eye on Lois. He laid her gently on the bench, only slightly deliberate about resting her feet on the doorman's comic book.

"Listen, can we trust you to get her to her apartment?" Marin asked the doorman as she grabbed Clark's arm and backed toward the door.

"Yeah, no problem!" He nodded emphatically and waved them on. "Don't worry, I've got it from here."

"I can take her - " Clark offered, bending to lift Lois again when he felt a tug on his arm.

"We really have to get back to the party, Kal. They're waiting for us. She'll be fine."

Caught between obligation and prudence, Clark hesitated for a moment. Marin, presumably under the guise of moving in to kiss his neck, wrapped her arms around Clark and whispered into his ear. "I know you want to see her safely home, but we don't know who else may be there and we can't risk someone else seeing you and telling her you were there."

Clark threw a forlorn glance in Lois' direction. "Yeah, um - we do have to go." He began walking backward to the door. "We'll come back to check on her," he added as a pseudo-warning.

Only a few steps outside the door, Marin stopped and challenged Clark. "We'll be back to check on her?"

"He doesn't know we won't," Clark explained. "Keep walking." He took a few long steps until he was out of view of the doorway, and turned to focus his vision on the interior of the building. The doorman had resourcefully placed Lois in a rolling office chair and was wheeling her toward an elevator.

"We need to get back, Clark."

"Just a minute." He had to refocus his eyesight and lost them momentarily, but found them again on the second floor, where the doorman was knocking on what must be Lois' apartment. Receiving no answer, he opened it with a master key. Clark was uncomfortable with this eerie doorman having access to Lois' apartment, especially when she was vulnerable, but he had to hope that his admonition that he'd be back would serve as something of a deterrent.

"You'd make some boy scout, Clark."

Clark turned back to Marin and started walking again, concern evident on his face. "I'm just not comfortable leaving her unconscious, especially around that guy - I got a creepy feeling from him."

Marin smiled wryly. "You're very protective of the women in your life."

"I tend to get that way when someone injects them with experimental sedatives," Clark quipped coldly.

Marin stopped again and took an authoritative stance. "Look, I'm not going to keep circling this issue with you. She followed you, she eavesdropped, found out pretty much everything, and somebody had to think fast. Thinking fast is part of my job, and like it or not I made the right decision. Now, if for whatever reason you decide you'd rather believe that I'm some crazy needle-wielding maniac, that's fine," she paused to survey the scene around them and dropped her voice. "But it's my job to help keep your secret under wraps, and that's what I did. I've been on this project for months, I'm well acquainted with the risks, and she, as far as I'm concerned, was a risk. I'm not about to risk the integrity of the project because your girlfriend couldn't mind her own business."

Clark stepped methodically closer to Marin, standing over her with threatening intensity. He spoke concisely, punctuating each word with an effective pause. "Lois is more than a risk." He backed away and continued toward the back entrance of the lab. "And I am not a project." 


	4. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

The corridor seemed to have grown longer in the five minutes since they left it, and the trek back to the labs felt interminable. Marin decided to make one last attempt to restore civility before she had to submit Clark to a barrage of experiments. She put a hand on Clark's arm and motioned for him to stop. 

"Now what?" 

Marin shrank into her jacket. "I just - I think we got off on the wrong foot." 

"Is that why I have to keep hearing how right you are about everything?" 

"Damn it, Clark, get off your self-righteous high horse for a minute, would you?" Marin boldly pushed Clark back against the wall. "I'm trying to hold out the olive branch here. As far as I can see there's no harm, no foul. Yeah, I wish I hadn't had to take such drastic measures, but I had no other choice." In her frustration she kicked at the wall, remembering too late that her rubber-soled Keds weren't exactly designed to absorb high impact with concrete. "Ow, damn it!" She lost her balance and felt herself begin to stumble, but Clark caught her before she fell. 

"It's not broken," he announced, his stare fixed on her left big toe. 

Marin pulled herself up and threw Clark's arm off. "I know it's not, I could tell if I broke a bone or not." She took a step and winced in pain, but still refused Clark's help. "I'm _fine_," she insisted before taking another step and nearly collapsing. She was almost ready to try again when the sudden sensation of Clark's arm around her waist and his hand under elbow almost induced a collapse of a different sort. "I thought you were mad at me." 

"I'm not about to let you go dragging yourself back to the lab like that, broken toe or not." Clark moved slowly for Marin's sake. He seemed sullen and distant for a moment, and it surprised Marin when he spoke again. "And I'm not mad at you." 

"That was quite a convincing performance then, 'cause I was pretty sure I felt some serious pissed-offishness in my general direction." 

"Pissed-offishness?" 

"Hey, I'm the not-so-walking wounded, cut me some slack." Marin relaxed a little, relieved to have settled into somewhat less stringent banter. "This is the Clark Kent I was expecting." She hadn't really meant to say that, and the thought had snuck up on her and jumped through her lips before she had a chance to ask it why. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Oh, I uh… I mean, I always hear about this sweet farmer's kid with a hero complex, you know - and since I pissed you off five minutes after you got here, I just… well, I saw a side of you I wasn't prepared for." 

Clark was silent and looked straight ahead. "You know a lot about me, don't you." It wasn't a question. 

"Yeah… well, if a seven month in-depth case study constitutes 'a lot.' But there are always things that can surprise you." 

"Like what?" 

"Like… Lois?" 

Clark looked surprised. "What about Lois?" 

"Actually, I was thinking 'what about Lana,' 'cause I thought that was your girlfriend's name." 

Clark exhaled in a low whistle. "In-depth study, huh?" 

Marin answered with a noncommittal shrug. 

"Lana and I are…" Clark paused to search for the appropriate description of his rocky relationship with Lana. 

"Just friends?" Marin postulated. 

"Complicated." 

"Ah." 

"And not together." 

"Ah squared." 

"Ah squared?" Clark replied teasingly. 

"Sorry, nerd humor. Side effect of working under ground and studying extra-terrestrial life on Earth. Technically, it would actually be 'ah, times two,' since - " 

"That's okay, I think I got it." 

Marin was finding it progressively easier to sink against Clark and allow him to hold her up, even though she knew it was of no significance to him, This was just who he was; the type who would carry an old lady's groceries across the street, even if he didn't know her - and probably had. And that only made him harder to resist. "So… are we back on the right foot?" 

Clark nodded. "I think so." 

"Good, 'cause my left foot is killing me." 

. . .

Lois sat up groggily, trying to figure out what didn't make sense - she was certain something didn't make sense. _I'm in my room… on my bed…okay, not weird. But fully dressed? Complete with jacket and shoes? I don't even remember getting home._ She crossed the room to her dresser, assessing herself in the mirror above it. _Ugh, I look like I just walked out of the _Thriller_ video. What is in my hair?_ She pulled at stringy cobwebs clinging to her bangs and shuddered involuntarily. Her face was streaked with dust and - tears? Her head felt like an impromptu performance of _Tap Dogs_ had a sold-out engagement inside it, and her mouth tasted vaguely of vomit. 

"What the hell happened to me?" 

. . .

Clark was lying on his back with his arms crossed behind his head, letting the blandness of the white ceiling wash over him and dull his senses. Repeated exposure to minute quantities of refined Kryptonite - while necessary to collect his various tissue samples - left him feeling like a drained battery. Even his mind felt a little numb, and he was aware that he was not in fact fully aware of anything. There were voices in the hall outside the open door of his room, but he couldn't identify them or even guess their number. 

He knew his clarity should be returning any moment, that the effects of the Kryptonite should be short-lived once he was rid of it, but in his stupor Clark was drawn to something he could see beyond the fiberboard ceiling and the antique shop above it - not with his eyes, which he had now closed, but through them - almost inside them - and then he could feel it… the sky… 

Clark was startled out of his reverie when something hit his face - or rather his face hit something. Realizing that the offending something was actually the ceiling brought him fully out of his dream state, and sent him crashing down to the bed, where he became a jumble of limbs and confusion on a flattened frame of steel. 

"Dr. Swann!" A voice and the body it belonged to rushed into the room. "Dr. Swann! He's landed!" 


	5. Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

A hot shower could wash away the tear stains and cobwebs, but it could do nothing to purge Lois of the fear of what had happened between her bus ride and the clouded awakening she'd just experienced. After an initial panic, she concluded that she appeared to be otherwise unharmed, at least physically.

She tried to take stock of her memories. _I remember seeing Clark on the sidewalk… wait, no, I last saw him talking to Mr. Kent. Didn't I? Dinner with Chloe, pseudo-shopping in "downtown" Smallville, caught the bus… what am I missing?_ Her thoughts kept returning to Clark, but she saw him in Metropolis, in front of her building, and that just didn't make sense. It was a disconnected memory, like a renegade snapshot from a misplaced photo album.

She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, then wiped the steam from the mirror and studied her reflection. "Why can't I remember what happened?"

"Repeat after me: 'My name is Alice, and I work for the Umbrella Corporation.'"

Lois spun around to find the doorman peering into the bathroom from the hallway.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lois cried, then sprang toward him and kicked his right knee, causing him to sprawl face-down on the floor. Lois knelt astride his back and twisted his arms behind him.

The doorman screamed in agony. "Ow, damn it Lois! That's my bad leg!"

"Oh is it?" She tightened her grip on his wrists. "You'll get a bad arm to go with it if you don't tell me what you're doing here, Chris!" To emphasize her point, Lois pushed up on his elbow, eliciting more screams.

"Stop it! Stop! I just came to check on you, and you didn't answer the door. " He paused, blinking rapidly and trying to speak through the pain. "Hell, you were unconscious! I was supposed to just mind my own business?"

"That'd be a first." Lois tried to calm down and digest the situation. "When did I get home?"

"Look, let me up and I'll tell you everything I know."

"Do you know what happened to me?"

"No, I can only tell you how you got here."

Lois considered, then released her grip and stood up. "Don't move - you stay there until I get dressed."

"Yeah, uh - not a problem, since I think you broke my leg - again!"

"I didn't break your leg the first time, you sick little worm," Lois called from the bathroom as she pulled on a pair of track pants. "It's not my fault you fell off the fire escape when I caught you at the window." She came back out to the hall and nudged Chris's foot, causing Chris to roar yet again. "Don't be such a drama queen, Chris. It's not broken." Although, his leg did look a little disjointed. "Hold still," she advised, and straightened his leg to guide the joint back into place.

Chris screamed and tore at the hallway carpet with his teeth. "Damn, you're heartless."

Lois pulled him up by the back of his shirt and propelled him down the hallway. "No, I just don't get a lot of warm fuzzies for stalkers and perverts - and you're both, so you're out of luck." She shoved him toward an unforgiving wooden chair. "Now, talk."

Chris rubbed his neck and flexed his knee. "Give me an ice pack."

Lois grabbed the arms of the chair and leered at Chris menacingly. "Look, I just woke up with no memory of how I ended up on my bed, or anything else that happened after I took the bus yesterday, and then I find _you_ in my hallway while I'm wearing a towel. Now, I don't know how you would react to that, but it kind of makes me anxious - and impatient."

Chris stared back at her, his pained gaze sharpening into an even, calculating glare. "Ice, pack."

Lois straightened up and stepped back. "Fine." She went to the freezer and came back with a frozen gel pack, pitching it at Chris like a major league baseball. "Now, start at the beginning. When did I get home?"

"Ahh…" Chris began, holding the cold pack over his knee. "Around eleven thirty."

"And?"

"And what?"

Lois began pacing, aggravated. "And was I walking? Brought in on a stretcher? What?"

"A couple of your friends brought you back."

"What friends?"

"I don't know the girl's name, but she called the guy Kal."

_Kal… I don't know a Kal…_ "Was I conscious?"

"No, you were completely wasted."

"What did they look like?"

"The girl was about five-four, blondish, pale. Didn't seem like the partying type, but she was anxious to get back to the party."

"They said I was at a party?"

"Yeah." Chris shifted in his seat and applied the ice pack to his shoulder.

"What about the guy?"

"He was tall, more than six feet I'd say. Dark hair, plaid shirt, jeans, definitely not from around here."

Lois narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "Was he good-looking? Looked like he works out?"

"Uh, sure. He must work out, he was carrying you and it didn't seem like it strained him."

_Clark_. "He was carrying me?"

"Yeah."

"Were they in here?"

"No, they turned you over to me at the door and left."

Lois shuddered, realizing that no friend of hers in this city would have left her in Chris' hands, as they all knew of her vocal contempt for the voyeuristic doorman. _It had to be Clark. But was he part of what happened, or did he just bring me home?_ She had no doubt that if Clark happened upon her in some kind of distress, he'd have helped her, but could she believe that it was merely a coincidence? He was in Metropolis, but it was a big city.

"You can go now, Chris." She helped him stand and he hopped toward the door.

Chris continued talking. "I brought you up here in my desk chair."

"Thanks," Lois answered detachedly.

"And then I put you on the bed," Chris went on as he exited into the hallway, apparently thinking this was evidence that he was a good Samaritan.

"Chris, wait," Lois said as she came to the door behind him.

"Yes?"

Lois drew her hand back and slapped him clean across his left cheek. "Don't _ever_ come in here again." 


	6. Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Clark stood with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the digital video play back on a flat-screen monitor.

"When you didn't come down right away, we decided to record our observations," Dr. Prescott explained. "From the onset to the moment you crashed - it was pretty incredible."

Clark shook his head. "I look like… like a dead fish in an aquarium," he said, watching himself drift from wall to wall and everywhere in between. "How long was I like this?"

Dr. Prescott referred to some notations on a clipboard. "It started about three hours ago, when we'd just completed the otoscopy. You were alert, though weakened from the Kryptonite exposure, and then you had what appeared to be a seizure. Your vitals remained stable, but - you began to levitate. We managed to strap you down long enough to push the table into your bunker, but the bonds broke and you just floated freely for…" she consulted her paperwork again. "Two hours and twenty-six minutes."

Clark looked away from the screen, visibly alarmed. "I was _floating_ for two and a half hours?"

"We couldn't bring you out of it, and didn't know if it was safe to try," Dr. Crosby added.

Clark rubbed his eyes. "Okay, great, so I float in my sleep." He nodded to himself, trying to say it like it was nothing more unusual than sleepwalking. "Ha! I _float_ in my sleep! Man, I'm a story even the _Inquisitor_ wouldn't buy."

"I thought this had happened before?" Dr, Ripley inquired.

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure it didn't last that long, and I was actually asleep before it happened, like it was part of a dream." Clark rubbed his head thoughtfully, realization dawning on him. "And this time, I think I knew what I was doing."

"What do you mean?" Marin spoke up. Clark hadn't even realized she was in the room.

"I mean - not that I knew I was swimming in mid-air in a bunker, but I was flying. At least it felt like I was - I could feel clouds, and the sun - until I hit the ceiling and woke up."

"So, you were dreaming of flight?" Dr. Swann surmised.

"No… no, I was… I was doing something." Clark turned back to the monitor. "Is there some kind of pattern on the video?"

"What, like a flight pattern?" Dr. Ripley teased.

Clark rolled his eyes. "Yes, basically. Am I drifting in any sort of pattern, or is it all random?"

The six of them studied the video feed, searching for any sign of habitual or repeated behavior.

"I don't see any patterns," Marin said, a conclusion echoed by the rest of the group. "Why do you think there'd be one?"

Clark shrugged. "I'm not sure, exactly. I kind of had this sense of… purpose? I don't know, there was something I was supposed to do." He shook his head and looked at the monitor again. "I know I wasn't fully dreaming, because I could hear you talking in the hall and I could see the room, but I didn't feel like I was really here." A deep, ponderous silence filled the room as each of them mentally pored over what this might imply.

"Was it triggered by the test?" Clark wondered aloud.

"That's one hypothesis," Dr. Crosby answered. "We need to run some data analysis and reconstruct the incident. Maybe we'll learn something from the 3D digital model of your inner ear we got from the otoscopy, once it's complete. Marin has a few more values to factor before it's viable, but hopefully it will tell us something." Dr. Crosby paused and compared her wristwatch to the clock on the wall. "It's almost seven, we've been at this all night. Why don't you go topside for some coffee and maybe we'll have some news when you get back?"

"Aren't any of you gonna take a break?"

Dr. Swann smiled and turned his chair toward Clark. "Just try to make them."

Clark smiled and started to head back to his room to change, but Dr. Prescott called after him. "But we expect coffee!"

"Can you get me a PowerAde?" Dr. Ripley shouted.

Marin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, PowerAde for the biogeneticist."

"It has electrolytes," Dr. Ripley muttered defensively.

"Half the point of being a scientist is having an excuse to be pasty and malnourished," Marin jested.

"Speak for yourself - I still want to look good for the ladies."

Marin began to look queasy. "Clark? Can you get me some Mylanta? And a mop? I think I'm about to be sick."

"You make people sick," Dr. Ripley jabbed.

"Oh!" Marin gasped in mock agony. "The pain! The sharpness of your wit has cut me! What are you, ten? And my brother?"

"Thankfully, no."

"Go splice a gene."

"I'd have to if I shared any with you."

"Okay, neutral corners, kids!" Dr. Crosby intervened. "We have work to do."

. . .

After taking everyone's orders and some cash from Dr. Crosby, Clark dressed in jeans and a red sweater and took the elevator up to the antique shop. He was still deep in thought when he exited the front door, and didn't notice anyone passing by on the other side until he'd thrown the door open, which collided violently with an extra large latte, sending it cascading down the front of an orange leather jacket.

Lois screamed and pulled her scalding shirt away from her skin. "What is the matter with you, were you raised in a barn or some - Clark?" She gaped at Clark open-mouthed, who looked simultaneously guilty and innocent as he shielded himself behind the glass door.

Clark stepped out from behind the door. "I'm so sorry, Lois! I didn't see you there." He bent to pick up the fallen lid and offered it to her, but she only looked quizzically at it and held up her now empty cup.

"Tell it to the four-seventy-five I just spent, apparently only for the opportunity to have my jacket cleaned again."

"I'm really sorry, I'll buy you a new cup of coffee."

"Latte."

"I'll buy you a new latte." Lois' scowl didn't fade. "And I'll pay to have your jacket cleaned."

"Oh, you bet you will, Kent." She spun on her heel and headed back the way she came.

Clark remained awkwardly where he was, holding the coffee cup lid in one hand and his self-confidence in the other.

"Well?" Lois prompted from ten yards down the block. "Are you coming?"

"Where?"

"Well, I'm not walking around all day with a triple shot on my chest, so I'm going home to change, and you're coming with me. Besides, you owe me a latte and I owe you a dry cleaning bill."

Clark threw a glance over his shoulder into the antique shop. "Um, I'm not sure…"

"Clark!"

"Okay, I'm coming," he conceded, and fell into step behind Lois.

"Try to keep up."

"I'll try," Clark submitted meekly, but snickered inwardly. _I'd like to see her try to keep up with me sometime._

"So, are you in dire need of a new rocking chair for the front porch or something?"

"What?"

"You're antiquing at seven in the morning."

"Oh…" Clark scoured his brain for a reasonable excuse. "Um, this family back home makes homemade furniture and sells some of it at that shop. I was just checking it out."

"Ah, of course. I don't know a single high school boy who doesn't go slack-jawed at the thought of a well-turned table leg." _Ha! I made a woodworking joke, points for me_! "Here we are," Lois announced as she pulled the door open, not giving Clark a chance to do it for her. "But you knew that."

Clark stopped cold. _She remembers_! "Uh… how would I know that?"

Lois smiled. "I gave you my address yesterday, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Clark stepped through the door after her.

"And, of course - you brought me home last night."

Clark froze again. "Last night?"

"Well, Chris said I was carried home by a tall, good-looking guy wearing jeans and plaid, and since that's something of an endangered species in Metropolis, I guessed it was you." 

As they crossed the entrance to the elevator, Chris hobbled over to Lois from his corner, wide-eyed and leery. "That's the guy!" He stage-whispered hoarsely. 

"Ten feet away, Chris," Lois said without breaking her stride. Chris dejectedly dragged himself back to his rolling office chair. 

"Not fond of the doorman, are you?" Clark surmised with a raised eyebrow as the elevator opened before them. 

"Defining him as a doorman is a very loose characterization," Lois snarked. "He's never actually at the door, he's in his chair reading comics or - who knows what else. He's a creepy little pervert." 

"Has anyone complained about him?" 

"This is Metropolis, Clark. All we do is complain. But he's never disciplined because his uncle owns the building and takes pity on him because he's the son of his dead sister, or something, and whenever anyone threatens to have him fired he says he'll sue for wrongful termination because of his disability." 

"The limp?" 

Lois grinned. "No, that's not a handicap, it's a work-related injury." 

"Work-related?" 

"Well, since the only thing he really works at is climbing the fire escapes to look into peoples' windows, I would call the risk of falling off and breaking his leg an occupational hazard - hence the "work-related" injury." 

"So what's his disability?" 

"He never says, but I'm betting it's mental." 

Clark was feeling pretty justified in his initial judgment of Chris the doorman. "Have you considered moving?" 

"Because of Chris?" The elevator opened onto the second floor. "No." 

"Why not?" It seemed like reason enough to Clark. 

"Because rent control is a rare and beautiful gift, and one must not squander it." 

"Ah." 

Lois sifted through her bag for her keys. "Yeah, I moved in here last semester when I got sick of my RA in the dorm. My friend Rachel had this place for a couple of years, and let me sublet while she went backpacking through Europe with her boyfriend. I think she dumped him in Brussels or something, but she met a new guy in Italy. Always Italy, you know?" 

"Um, uh huh." Clark followed Lois into the apartment and stood timidly in the living room while she flitted around opening blinds and turning on lamps. 

"Doesn't get much sunlight though, that's the only thing. Anyway, Rachel's last postcard said she was moving into a place in Florence with the Italian guy - or maybe it was a second Italian guy? Anyway, she's not coming back any time soon, so mi casa es… mi casa."

"Not bad." 

"Chris said something interesting though, actually," Lois said as she tossed her coffee-stained jacket on the kitchen counter and began to unbutton her blouse. 

"Hmm?" Clark was trying to imagine anything else being interesting other than Lois' back when her shirt slid off of it as she retreated into the bathroom. 

"This is never going to come out!" Lois shouted in response. 

"That's what Chris said?" 

"No, I meant the latte - this shirt is wrecked. Anyway, yeah, Chris said something interesting." 

Clark waited for her to continue, but she didn't. "And what was that?" He prompted. 

"He said that you brought me home around eleven thirty." 

"Uh huh." Clark had a feeling that this casual banter was only a set-up to wrangle him into an interrogation. 

"But my bus left Smallville at six-fifteen, which means I should have been in Metropolis by nine-fifteen, which means I should have been home by nine-forty. So where was I between the time I got off the bus, and the time you left me in the lobby?" 

Clark suddenly began to feel as if he'd grown much too large for the room, and the truth of what had happened last night would outgrow it as well. "I don't know." 

Lois emerged from the bathroom wearing a faded Metropolis Sharks sweatshirt. "It's not mine, and it's laundry day. So - I wasn't with you last night?" 

Clark looked at his toes and tried to hide his nervous smile. "Uh, no - you weren't with me last night." 

"But you just happened to find me unconscious and bring me home?" 

"Yeah, exactly that," Clark nodded. 

"Where did you find me?" 

"At the uh… bus station." 

"What were you doing there? You got here hours before me." 

"I went back to look for my keys, I dropped them." 

"So, you found me unconscious, in the bus station, and you brought me home? You didn't think I needed medical attention?" 

"No. I mean - you told me to bring you home, so I brought you home." 

"Wasn't I unconscious?" 

"Not at first - you were kind of wandering around, and I asked if you were okay, and you asked me to take you home and then you kind of fainted." Clark was afraid to exhale, as if the vein of his lie would bleed out with his breath. 

Lois looked thoughtful as she digested this new information. "You brought me straight home?" 

Clark nodded. "Yeah, of course." 

Lois absent-mindedly smoothed her ponytail. "That couldn't have taken more than twenty minutes - so you found me around eleven-ten?" 

"Sounds about right." 

"So I was wandering around the bus station in a non-drunken stupor for almost two hours?" 

Clark was beginning to look more and more uncomfortable. "I guess so." 

"You guess so?" 

"Yeah, I guess so." 

Lois had no real way to prove it yet, but she was certain Clark knew more than he was letting on. How could he meet the supposition that she was mentally AWOL for almost two hours with "I guess so?" That just didn't seem quite… Clarkish. For that matter, neither did - "Hey! What about the girl?" 

"The girl?" 

"Yeah, Chris said you were with a girl - the two of you said we'd all been at a party, right? Why did you say I was at a party? Who was the girl?" Her tone was all at once inquisitive, teasing, and - she hoped - only slightly jealous. 

_We should have injected Chris with some of that EF-19_. "I don't know, Marin said we were at a party. I guess she thought we should offer some explanation. I don't know." 

"Marin," Lois repeated. "So, who is this Marin?" 

Clark shrugged. "She's nobody, she's - " 

Lois looked at him knowingly and interrupted. "Just an old friend?" 


	7. Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Taking charge of the short distance between Lois' apartment and the lab with long strides, Clark knew he was being followed. It was too much to expect that Lois would lose her natural curiosity along with her memory, and Clark feared that he'd provided her with more questions than answers. He didn't turn to look at her, but he could feel her lurking. A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he imagined her peeking around corners and ducking behind trash cans, the theme from _Mission: Impossible_ stereotypically punctuating an imaginary somersault behind a parked car - probably more theatrical that what she was actually doing, but it amused Clark nonetheless. 

Clark didn't stop, or even pause outside of Kim's Handmade Furniture and Antiquities. He continued down the street until he came to a convenience store. He ducked in and bought a PowerAde for Dr. Ripley, then waited patiently while sipping one of the coffees he'd purchased earlier with Lois. 

_"Caffeine deprived much, Clark?" Lois seemed to address everything he did with suspicion. _

"Yes, very," came Clark's sarcastic reply as he loaded a cardboard tray with cups of coffee. "And one latte for the… uh, is 'lady' an appropriate label?" 

"Not for me, and I hate labels. So don't call me a 'lady.''" 

"Wasn't even tempted to." 

"Another zinger from the cow-town kid! Is there more where that came from, or did the frost come early this year and whither the quip crop?" 

"It's almost harvest time, I'll be stocked for the year. See you later, Lois." 

Clark had exited the shop feeling very satisfied with himself, especially after she'd ambushed him with the inquisition about the night before. Not that she wasn't justified in doing so, but Clark couldn't suppress the need to bristle just a bit. Now he watched the front window of the convenience store, knowing she'd be framed in it any moment. 

He didn't have to wait long. She approached the tinted glass, feigning interest in a hand-made sign in the window advertising Hostess pies at two for a dollar. She moved to presumably check her reflection in the window, but was really scanning the store's interior for Clark. She was startled to find his eyes met hers directly, and he raised his cup to her as if toasting her effort, adding insult to injury with a deliciously wicked grin. 

Lois' jaw dropped and she scowled, smacked the window with her bag and stalked haughtily away from the store. Clark laughed to himself and started back to the lab, momentarily forgetting the weight of what could happen there. 

"Sorry it took me so long," Clark addressed upon his return. "Lois sort of cornered me, asking about last night, and then I had to make sure she didn't follow me again." 

"Were you able to satisfy her?" Dr. Prescott asked. 

"What?" 

"Her curiosity - that's what you meant, right Andrea?" Marin clarified. 

"Yes, curiosity," Dr. Prescott nodded. "Did you explain to her satisfaction?" 

Clark shook his head dejectedly. "I did the best I could, but I don't think she bought it. She's going to keep digging even if she did buy my part of the story, because I couldn't tell her what happened to her in the two hours before she thinks I found her." 

"You're sure she didn't follow you here?" 

Clark smiled. "Yeah, she tried but I let her know I knew what she was doing, and I took a weird route coming back just in case." 

"Nevermind that now, Clark." Dr. Crosby interrupted, making an otherwise silent entrance into the lab's hub. "It seems we may have found something." 

The whole group filed into Dr. Prescott's diagnostics lab. 

"Marin did a terrific job with the imaging on this thing, it gives us an incredibly complete rendering of your middle and inner auditory structure." Dr. Prescott hit a series of keys in front of one of her many terminals, bringing up what looked like a CGI version of an ear canal. "Now, naturally the probe couldn't enter your inner ear or we'd puncture the tympanic membrane, but the otoscope we've developed is advanced enough to scan beyond the view of its own lens and assemble a near-perfect graphic representation of the tissues we wouldn't even be able to see with a standard scope. It also collects different types of data in different streams, so that we can view the structure in different ways." Dr. Prescott pressed another series of buttons, altering the image. "For example, we can study only the thermal scan of your ear, or only the electric impulses, or only the acoustic - well, there's a lot to it that I'm excited about, but nobody else would be, so we'll move on." 

Dr. Prescott opened a file containing an internal video feed of the procedure performed on Clark that morning. "We can record the various data streams in real time, so Marin and I were able to form a fair postulation of what caused the seizure." She drew a telescoping pointer from her pocket and indicated a tiny portion of the image. "This is the organ of Corti, which is the sensory organ of hearing. It changes vibrational energy into neural energy and transmits it to the brain via the auditory nerve. Now, if we isolate the image with the electric impulse grid and play back the moment the seizure occurred, we see something interesting. Obviously we didn't stimulate the organ of Corti directly, but at one point it seems the probe jabbed - for lack of a better word - into the tympanic membrane, which, I'm assuming because of your weakened state, over-stimulated the Corti, and as you can see from the electrical surge along the auditory nerve, it basically short-circuited your auditory sensors and off-set the fluid in the Eustachian tubes, which help control balance." 

Clark looked somewhat disappointed. "So you're saying this was a fluke?" 

Dr. Prescott grinned. "Not necessarily." She went to a different computer and called up another series of images. "We were also monitoring your brain activity, as you know. Prior to the seizure, your brain was functioning at a capacity comparable to that of humans. However, when the seizure occurred and long after it passed, your brain activity was at both a higher rate and higher capacity than is normal for anyone, including you." 

Clark looked alarmed. "Couldn't that be dangerous?" 

"For a human, yes - overactivity of either excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters will lead to conditions like epilepsy, but for you - we think it was supposed to happen. Dr. Swann?" 

Dr. Swann, who had been sitting silently throughout Dr. Prescott's presentation, cleared his throat. "I've formed a theory, Clark, and I wanted to be the one to tell you." 

Clark stood silently and waited. 

"Your brain was functioning at human capacity, I believe, because the key to fully becoming who you are is buried in some part of your subconscious that Jor-El does not yet want you to access. Your re-birth as Kal-El flipped the switch, so to speak, and while you were able to do and know things that Clark couldn't, you also had no knowledge of the life you lead as Clark, and no concern for it." Dr. Swann regarded Clark expectantly, and the weight of words not yet spoken laced the air with electric anticipation. 

Clark rubbed a hand over his face and considered what this might mean. "You're saying that I've somehow tapped into Kal-El?" 

"Momentarily, yes. And I think you can do it again." 

"Why would I want to do it again?" Clark cried. "Kal-El is cold and destructive!" 

"And powerful." 

"I don't _want_ that power! Not if it means putting people I care about at risk!" Clark was growing frantic, fearing that he may already have done that. 

"Not even if it means being powerful enough to defy Jor-El? Bypassing the plans he has for you?" 

Clark stopped and stood still, letting that notion wrap him in its promise. "He's keeping me weaker until he can break me - until I'm ready to be his warrior." 

"I'd hesitate to make Jor-El a pure villain, Clark," Dr. Swann advised. "But I think it's safe to assume that if you could bridge this gap - if you could do all the things Kal-El can do, but with your own heart to guide you - then maybe you can resist Jor-El and you could choose your destiny." 

Clark swallowed and spent a long interval staring at the bleak, gray floor, and then finally looked up at Dr. Swann. "So what do we do?" 

Dr Swann smiled, and spoke with the rapt fascination of a man at the summit of the greatest aspiration of his life. "We build a bridge." 


	8. Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

Still fuming over having her attempt at undercover surveillance so easily thwarted, Lois approached the bus station she'd supposedly been wandering around less than twelve hours before. She didn't know what she expected to find there, if anything, but Clark's story had more holes than the Twinkie defense and wasn't nearly as sweet. She'd been there countless times, passed it almost every day, so she tried to push away its familiarity to uncover whatever clue may be eluding her. 

Lois knew she looked confused, which she hated, so she struck a defiant pose with her chin out and strode across the street to the station with purpose. There was a taxi to her right, the driver standing by the door with a cigarette while waiting for his next fare. Such vignettes were virtually invisible in the tapestry of Metropolis - just part of the steadily buzzing backdrop. Lois might not have even noticed the cabbie, had he not visibly panicked when her foot hit the sidewalk, cursing and stomping out his cigarette as he fumbled with the door handle. 

Lois didn't recognize him, but he clearly remembered her - and apparently not with fondness. "Hey!" Lois called, quickening her pace to reach him before he put the car in gear. "Hey, what are you doing?" She leaned into the open driver's-side window and gripped the door. 

"Lady, I don't want any more trouble!" The driver was agitated and evidently wanted nothing to do with Lois. 

"What makes you think I'd give you any trouble?" Lois laid on the fake charm, spreading it evenly with a sugary smile. 

"Lady, I get the feeling you're nothing but trouble. You see my front fender? That's what happens when chrome meets concrete!" 

Lois nodded, mystified but playing along. "Well, that's what happens when driver meets Jack Daniels." 

The cabbie's face purpled with rage. "Look lady, I don't ever want to see you near my cab again! You cost me money and paperwork, the way you carried on last night. I'm _sorry_ I accidentally flicked ashes at you, but you didn't have to hit me. I lost control of the wheel, and it's all your fault!" 

Lois' eyes narrowed. _Last night! Wait - he flicked ashes at me? And he only has a dented fender?_ "How does a person _accidentally_ flick cigarette ashes at someone in the backseat?" 

"Don't try to pull anything cute with me, lady. You were in the front and you know it. Your giant, piece of junk suitcase took up the whole back." 

Lois nodded, beginning to piece the puzzle together. "So of course, there was nobody else in the back seat. When did I get in your cab? Around 9:20? Did you bring me home?" 

The cab driver stared at Lois, dumbfounded. "Yeah, sure, dropped you across the street from your place, remember? Look, I'd lighten up on the Irish coffee before lunchtime, if I were you. "You're some kind'a crazy." He shook his head, put the car in gear and drove off. 

Lois stared after the retreating car. _I got into a cab, alone, went straight home, and - what? Wound up back at the bus station at eleven o'clock? Why? To indulge Smallville-boy's hero complex?_

. . .

"This is ridiculous, I have a hundred other tests to perform, other samples to take - I don't understand why we can't wait to do this until we've had more time to properly prepare for it. We should proceed with the trials as originally planned. Clark is only here until tomorrow, an undertaking like this is too ambitious for only twenty-four hours' observation." Dr. Ripley was uncharacteristically passionate in his stance against the idea of beginning the "bridge-building" right away. 

Dr. Swann looked exasperated. "I wasn't proposing that any actual therapies should begin _today_ Ethan, but I do think it's reasonable to begin brain-mapping so we have something to reference as we develop the procedures." 

Dr. Ripley stomped his foot in a fit of pre-adolescent defiance. "But if we take the time to do that now, I won't have a lot of the data I was hoping to be able to study over the next few months!" 

Marin rolled her eyes. "Drink your PowerAde, Ethan. Let the grown-ups talk." 

"I've had enough of your - " 

Dr. Ripley was interrupted when Dr. Crosby cut in. "Okay, I'm not here to baby-sit! Ethan, we're just wasting more time by arguing about this, but as it happens I agree with you. The cerebral mapping alone is going to take considerable time, we can have Clark back in the next week or two to do that. In the mean time, we'll move forward with our original plan. Now, Ethan, what do you still need to do?" 

Dr. Ripley, with an expression of vindication not unlike a child on the playground who made it to the top of the jungle gym first, opened a notebook and made a few checkmarks. "I still need to collect a few biological specimens - and there was another matter that Andrea and I had discussed." 

Dr. Prescott's eyes widened and almost simultaneously narrowed into a maliciously vengeful glare aimed at Dr. Ripley. "I thought we had agreed not to push that… matter." She looked at him pointedly. 

"No, Andrea, you agreed - I said I thought it merited a trial." Dr. Ripley shrugged smugly. 

"You can't orchestrate a trial for that!" Dr. Prescott appeared to be horrified by whatever Dr. Ripley was insinuating. 

"Of course we can, and I think we should - I think he'd want to know." 

"What would I want to know?" Clark had been silent until now, waiting for the powers that be to decide which tests he'd submit to when. It made little difference to him, as long as it meant he could begin to forge his way into Kal-El's power, at least enough to break free from Jor-El's. 

Dr. Ripley minced no words. "You're a virgin, right?" 

Clark's jaw dropped, and he stood stunned for a moment until he found his voice - an octave higher than usual. "So, who's up for some brain-mapping?" 

Dr. Prescott tried to intervene. "See, now look - this isn't necessary." 

"Now wait a minute," Dr. Ripley pressed on. "Come on Clark, yes or no?" 

Clark became progressively more uncomfortable. "Why does it matter?" 

Dr. Ripley grinned eerily. "It matters a great deal, Clark. A very great deal. Considering that one of your powers was discovered purely because you were in a state of - " 

"Okay, yeah," Clark interrupted. "That's true, but it has nothing to do with the heat vision anymore, I've focused it and I can do it whenever I want without thinking about… other things." 

"Yes, of course," Dr Ripley nodded emphatically. "But it raises other questions." 

"I don't see how." 

"Really?" Dr. Ripley took on a patronizing tone. "There are no burning questions about your sexuality that you've never been able to answer?" 

"Make your point, Ethan, or leave him alone." Dr. Crosby had little patience for some of Dr. Ripley's little games. 

"When Andrea and I discussed it, she wondered about how various forms of stimulation - not just sexual - might trigger new powers, or even variations of existing ones. This brought us to consider whether or not he could safely - copulate, shall we say - with a human woman. Then there were more questions - could he impregnate her? Could she safely carry his child to term? How many of his abilities would this child inherit, if any? What kind of physical risks would be involved? Can a Kryptonian contract any STDs? Can a Kryptonian transmit them? Can he - " 

"Can a Kryptonian be gay?" Marin interjected, and Dr. Ripley shot her a vicious look. "Oh, I'm sorry - you're just getting so worked-up and passionate about Clark, I figured that's where you were headed." 

"Can we not talk about this, please?" Clark begged, his youth and innocence colliding with the fact that he had always asked himself many of these same questions. 

"Yes, Ethan, I think you've scared him enough," Dr. Swann added. "But he does pose a worthy query, Clark." 

Clark peeked timidly from under his lashes at the faces in the room, and drew a deep breath. He turned to Dr. Swann. "I don't want to talk about this with… everybody." 

Dr. Swann began to steer his chair out of the diagnostics lab. "We'll talk in my office." Clark followed meekly, and inadvertently glanced up at Marin as he passed, catching a trace of intrigue burning in her eye, further betrayed by the deep flush on her cheeks. She turned away and shuffled a stack of blank paper. 

. . .

"So, Clark, I'm guessing by your discomfort that Dr. Ripley - while perhaps misguided - was not entirely off the mark?" 

Clark closed the office door behind him and took a seat opposite Dr. Swann, drawing his knees up and looking for all the world as lost as he felt. "Actually, he was pretty much on-target." 

"So you have been wondering about these things." 

"Of course I have," Clark mumbled. "I'm eighteen - or something like eighteen, as close as anyone can guess. How could I not wonder? Most guys do, only most guys don't have to worry about what might happen." 

"What might happen to the girl, you mean?" Dr Swann had considerable difficulty suppressing a knowing smile. 

"Well, yeah, mostly." Clark looked up at Dr. Swann's smirk and rolled his eyes. "Come on, it's not a 'delusions of grandeur' kind of thing, okay? I just - well, since I've never done it, I don't have any idea what could happen if I did - to me or to her. I mean, like Dr. Ripley said - what if it triggered something, like a variation of the heat vision? Or worse? Or… I don't know, it's the fear of the unknown I guess." 

"It's quite an unknown." 

"Yeah." Clark hung his head. 

"But do you want to know?" 

Clark looked up sharply. "Well, I'd like to, but I don't see how." 

"Well, there's the obvious way - " 

"No," Clark said starkly before Dr. Swann finished. He shook his head and gazed unseeingly toward the ceiling. "All those questions - the way he asked them - 'can he,' and 'can a Kryptonian,' - I'm really just a lab rat to him, aren't I?" Clark sank deeper into the chair and settled his head against the wall, sighing defeatedly. "An alien lab rat. I'm not a human - maybe I shouldn't expect to live like one." 

Dr. Swann pondered for a moment before speaking. "One of the most enduring fables of all time is the idea of a child being raised by wolves. Fed by them, guarded, kept warm and safe, taught to survive and hunt when the time comes. The child grows, and sees that it's different, but it knows nothing else. It lives as a wolf among the wolves, and they likewise see it as another wolf." 

"But like you said, that's a fable," Clark protested. "It's impossible." 

"As impossible as an alien being raised by humans? To be fed, guarded, taught to survive as a human? To be loved as a human?" 

Clark sat up straight, and a tear - one of the few things he couldn't fight - slid from the corner of his eye. "But I'm _not_ human." 

"It's the sum of our experiences that make us who we are, Clark." Dr. Swann moved his chair closer. "And you've experienced humanity." 

. . .

The entire group was waiting in the hub when Clark and Dr. Swann emerged from the office, hanging on the silence like a filled courtroom awaiting a jury's verdict. 

"We are not going to address any of the concerns you raised, Dr. Ripley - " Dr. Swann began. 

"I really must protest, Dr. Swann - I think - " 

"It doesn't matter what you think, Ethan," Dr. Swann continued. "We are essentially at Clark's disposal, and everything we do here is for his benefit, not merely to satisfy our curiosity. Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted, we will not address any of the aforementioned concerns aside from the most fundamental, and only if Clark chooses to." 

"The most fundamental?" Dr. Prescott asked. 

"The question, as Ethan so delicately phrased it, of whether or not Clark can safely copulate with a human woman." 

Clark looked surprised to hear this, and Dr. Prescott was dumbstruck. "You're not seriously considering allowing this, Dr. Swann!" 

"It's not a question of whether I'll allow it, it's a question of whether it will benefit Clark, and I think it's better that we facilitate such a trial, rather than not." 

Dr. Prescott scoffed and shook her head. "This sound like a 'buy the kids beer so at least I know where they're drinking it' mentality to me. I think it's reckless. And exactly who is he supposed to test with?" 

"It doesn't matter," Clark spoke up. "I'm not doing it." 

"There, see, he doesn't even want to!" Dr. Prescott cried with affirmation. 

"Geez, Clark, do you have supermorality too?" 

"That's it Ethan, I've had it - go analyze your data and don't show your snide little face out here until you have a real report for me." Dr. Crosby had finally maxed out her tolerance for Dr. Ripley. 

"Don't talk to me like a kid, I have as much right to be here - " 

"You've been acting like a kid, so you forfeit your right to participate in this discussion. Now go." 

Dr. Ripley sullenly picked up his notebook and his PowerAde and left the room. 

"It doesn't matter, Dr. Crosby, I can't do this." 

"Nobody will make you do it, Clark." Dr. Prescott seemed to be the only one speaking against the idea. "Besides, we'd need a willing and informed test subject." 

"I'll do it," Marin blurted suddenly, before her brain had fully realized what her body told it to say. _Damn! What did I get myself into?_

Clark's cheeks burned and he fixed his stare solidly to the floor. "No." 

Marin attempted a light-hearted shrug. "Hey, it's in the interest of science, right?" 

Clark shook his head and bit his lip. "No, I… no." 

Marin looked at Dr. Crosby, then Dr. Prescott, and finally at Dr. Swann. Then they all looked at Clark. 

After a long interval passed with nobody speaking, Clark assumed they were waiting for him to do something. He looked up defiantly. "I'm not a lab rat, you know." The telltale tear welled again in his eye. "I'm not a guinea pig. I'm not a human either, but I feel like one. I don't want to do this _in the interest of science_. I don't want to do it for any reason other than the right one, and this is not it." 

Marin nodded. "You want to do this with someone you care about." 

Clark looked sideways at the wall. "Of course." 

"Someone you love." 

Clark crossed him arms, gripping his elbows. "Yes, and call me crazy or old-fashioned or whatever you want, but I had the idea I'd wait until I was married." 

The part of Marin's soul that responded so deeply to such homespun decency wrapped itself around her, and she had to fight to keep it out of sight. "So your wedding night, with your wife - you'll wait until then." 

Clark nodded mechanically. "That's the plan." 

"So, it's the woman you love that you'd be willing to put at risk?" 

Clark's face twisted into anguish. "That is not fair!" he cried. 

"Exactly!" Marin shouted back. "If you have legitimate concerns about whether or not it would be safe for you to so much as consummate your marriage, yes, it would be extremely unfair of you to risk her well-being because you were afraid or unwilling to find out beforehand - for her sake." 

The other three in the room seemed to wordlessly concur that Marin had the situation in hand, and silently left the two to their argument. 

Clark ran his hands through his hair and began to pace the room. "Look, I was raised respectfully - maybe not progressively, but I like it that way and I wouldn't change it if I could. Yes, I have impulses that sometimes I'm pretty much dying to act on - yes, okay, I've got that part of being a 'normal teenage guy' down pretty well - but the point is I don't, and it's not only because of what may or may not be the consequences. It's - " 

"Supermorality, huh?" Marin had softened in spite of herself. 

Clark seemed to detect that she was backing down. "Yeah, maybe," he admitted, forcing a half-hearted attempt at a slight smile. 

Marin sat on the edge of the conference table, her feet resting on a plastic chair. "It's kind of funny, you know - the only ideal All-American boy I've ever met, and he's from a different planet." 

"Hmph," Clark snorted. "If I were anywhere close to ideal, I wouldn't be in a subterranean lab trying to redefine 'safe sex.'" 

"There you have it." 

"What?" 

"Ideals." 

"What about them?" 

Marin took a deep breath and tried to calm her involuntary reaction to Clark enough to select the right words. "Ideals - you were raised with certain ideals in mind - ideals like marriage and first-time wedding nights - I'm not criticizing that by the way, I'm just trying to set up my reasoning. The thing is - you've got this idea in your mind of the way everything is supposed to be - this ideal - but the problem is that those ideals are made up of conventions, which are rules defined by what people can and can not do, as determined on a social or physical scale. Sorry, I know I'm drifting into sociology talk, but are you following me so far?" 

Clark nodded. "Yeah, I got it." 

"So," Marin went on, "for example, none of the conventions of physics really apply to you, at least not in the same way they apply to other people. And because of that, there are some other conventions you can't allow yourself to be completely bound by." 

Clark tried to let that sink in, but he couldn't come to grips with it. "It sounds like an excuse to me." 

"It's a reason." 

"Same thing." 

"No, Clark." Marin shook her head. "Have you ever heard the saying 'the heart has reasons which reason does not know?'" Clark nodded, so Marin continued. "Sometimes we do crazy things, maybe foolish things, for love - but that doesn't make love an excuse. It makes love a reason - in this case, a reason to do the right thing to make sure nobody gets hurt." 

Clark sat in one of the molded plastic chairs and looked up at Marin, considering what she'd said and all that it meant for him - and for her. "But it could be you who gets hurt." 

Marin smiled, albeit nervously. "I'm a big girl, I'll be okay. I am an informed and willing participant, after all." 

Clark sat back and thought it over, then shook his head. "I just don't know." 


	9. Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

Clark stood shyly against the closed door of Marin's bunker, taking in his surroundings. "I didn't realize any of you actually lived here." 

Marin was trying to subtly shove a pile of dirty laundry under her bed. "Well, I'm the only one. I live here most of the time. Dr. Swann lives in New York, as you know, and so does Dr. Crosby. Andrea lives with her husband a couple of blocks from here, and Ethan - I think he still lives with his parents." 

Clark chuckled. "Really?" 

"No," Marin answered, settling herself on the bed, sitting cross-legged against the headboard. "But he's so socially stunted, he may as well." 

Clark retreated further into the corner by the door as he eyed the room - Marin in a bulky sweatshirt, sitting on the bed, surrounded by all the evidence of her achievements - certificates, trophies, ribbons - proof of her brilliance and ambition. Then there were the things that belied her softness and individuality - a shelf of Jane Austen novels intermixed with her science texts, photos of friends and family, walls adorned with her own charcoal sketches of things she'd never seen, uneven stacks of CDs and movies, a well-worn teddy-bear stuffed between crates of technical notebooks where most people would never notice it. _The hidden Marin - smart and talented, and look what I'm reducing her to_. 

Marin adjusted her position to lean against the wall, turning toward Clark. "You can, uh… you can actually come in, you know - I mean, there's no point in standing in the corner." She had grown very adept at feigning confidence she didn't really feel, and was pooling all her resources at the moment to keep from combusting in a burst of nervous energy. She didn't have the nerve to tell Clark that she really did want him to come in, if only so she could pretend for just a little while that it was her whom he cared for. She also didn't have the heart to burden him with her feelings, because she knew he didn't share them. 

Clark took a step forward, then his eyes fell on a framed picture of Marin and a young man, looking very happy together in thick parkas on what appeared to be a ski trip. He withdrew his forward step and sank back into the corner. "This is just - it's too intimate." 

Marin released a long-bottled anxious laugh. "Well, yeah, it tends to be that way." 

"No, I mean this… here. In your room, with all your stuff - " 

Marin looked confused. "We can do this more clinically, but I thought - well, is that what you want?" 

"No, it's just…" Clark stopped to search the ceiling for his explanation, and instead turned back to the framed photo and picked it up. "It's this. This guy." 

"Jake? What about him?" 

"Is he your boyfriend?" 

Marin's face washed over with a pained expression. "Not that it should matter to you, but no, not anymore." Her voice fell and her eyes retreated to another time. "He met somebody else," she added darkly. "There's nobody you need to worry about, if that's what you mean. I'm not with anybody, so I'm not cheating anybody." 

Clark raised his eyebrow. "Except yourself." 

"People do this every day, Clark. Most for much less noble or moral reasons." 

"But I don't, and neither do you." 

Marin scowled. "Geez, you really do have some kind of superhuman ability to avoid any moral ambiguity, don't you?" 

"I just don't feel right about this, Marin!" Clark shouted. "And honestly, I don't know why that's so hard for you to understand - or why this is so easy for you." 

"I never said it was _easy_ for me, I just said I was willing to do it for your sake." 

"But why?" Clark finally gave up his post by the door and approached the bed, his face close enough to Marin's that she could see her reflection in his eyes. "Why are you willing to do this for me? What makes me worth it?" 

Marin held his gaze and returned it wordlessly, until her resolve broke and she was forced to blink away her treacherous tears. "I don't know what you want to hear, Clark. There are answers you need and I can help you get them. I'm willing to help you get them, and that has to be enough for you." 

Clark didn't reply right away, in truth because he didn't know how to. Was it enough for him? Was it even enough for her? He looked down again at the picture of Marin and Jake. "Why do you still keep this, in a frame by your bed?" 

"Clark, I'm pretty sure it was you who said this was too intimate - and this isn't helping." Marin hugged a pillow to her chest. 

"Just - humor me, okay? Why do you keep this if he broke your heart?" 

"Why does it matter?" 

"Just answer the question." 

"Because… he meant something to me once. We had a history." 

"You shared experiences." 

"To put it incredibly vaguely, yes, we obviously 'shared experiences.'" 

"Experiences that you're having trouble getting over." 

Marin gave in to the tears and tucked her chin into the pillow. "What's your point?" she whispered. 

Clark knelt by the edge of the bed and looked up into Marin's red-rimmed eyes. "You're holding on to memories made with someone who deliberately hurt you." 

Marin shook her head. "You don't know that he - " 

"He did," Clark stated, preventing her from protesting. "But you're holding on." 

"And again," Marin spat bitterly. "What is your point?" 

"It's just that - experiment or not - if we share this experience, we're both going to hold on to it." 

"How do you know that?" 

"Are you saying it would be easy for you to forget?" 

Marin sniffled and smiled in spite of herself. "No," she admitted. 

"Dr. Swann said that we're the sum of our experiences," Clark recited as he stood and backed toward the door. "I don't want yours to add up unevenly because of me." 

"Is that all?" Marin scoffed. 

"Isn't that enough?" 

"No." 

Clark put his hand on the door handle and mulled over his reply. Finally, he spoke. "Marin, I'm just a scared farm kid. I really don't know what to do." 

Marin pulled deeper into herself, hiding behind the pillow, but she still threw on her brave face. "Clark, the decision is all yours. If you decide the answers are worth it, just come back and knock on the door." 

Clark nodded solemnly and disappeared through the door, closing it gingerly behind him. 

. . .

"That was Lois Lane," Martha announced as she pulled a pan of fresh blueberry muffins from the oven, having just hung up the phone. 

"Lois Lane?" Jonathan answered with surprise, washing his hands in the kitchen sink. "Did she leave something here?" He reached for a muffin, but Martha slapped his hand back. 

"Not now, dinner's almost ready!" Since Clark had forced the issue of honesty and all had been laid out on the table, Martha was feeling more like herself again. "You could give me a hand and set the table. You can handle a table for two, can't you?" 

Jonathan playfully rolled his eyes and opened a cupboard. "I may need step-by-step instructions, just in case. What's this round, flat thing for?" 

"If you break my plate, I'm buying new dishes." 

Jonathan cradled the dinner plate like an infant. "No harm will come to your dinnerware," he vowed with a grandiose bow and continued to set the table. "What did Lois want?" 

Martha furrowed her brow and upended the muffin pan. "I can't really say, I don't think she was sure either." 

Jonathan looked up from the table. "What does that mean?" 

"I don't know, she wanted the number of the friends Clark is staying with, because apparently he has some answers she needs? I don't know, she was talking a mile a minute and I couldn't get a word in." 

"You didn't give her the number, did you?" 

Martha glared at Jonathan and smacked him with a dishtowel. "_No_, I didn't give her the number. I told her I misplaced it." 

Jonathan rubbed the spot on his arm where the towel had struck. "You're lethal with that thing, you know." 

"I know," Martha smirked. "You don't think Lois ran into Clark in Metropolis, do you?" 

Jonathan shrugged. "Couldn't say. It's a big city." 

. . .

Clark paced the spartan accommodations of his tiny underground bunker for what felt like hours, contemplating each decision he could make and what all the possible outcomes might be. Sometimes he could justify just going for it, sometimes he couldn't. 

In the end, you could surmise that all of Marin's arguments had held their weight and convinced him. Maybe he had analyzed it to the point that it made no sense anymore, and the only answer was to act. Maybe he was simply a young man, drawn by biology and curiosity to what had been promised to him. 

Whichever thread of reason you follow, you'll find they all led Clark down the hall that night, to knock on Marin's door. 


	10. Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Marin pulled her sweater tightly around herself and blinked a few times, trying to focus her 3 a.m. insomnia on the list of tedious post-procedural questions she was supposed to answer. She checked column after column of "yes" and "no" boxes, penned a series of summaries, and documented her vital signs and a series of fluid samples before slugging down the last of the coffee that had been sitting in the pot since that afternoon. She began gathering the various papers she'd scattered across the hub's conference table and sliding them into files. Only after all the evidence was safely tucked out of sight did Marin fully exhale. She picked up her empty coffee cup and pulled her knees up to her chest, bracing her feet against the edge of the table as she glanced up at the clock on the wall. 

_It's been almost two hours_. Marin didn't want to admit that Clark was right all along, that she couldn't approach this as an empirical experiment and expect to still see it that way afterward. She'd showered quickly after Clark left and attacked the paperwork in hopes of distraction, but she couldn't hide inside herself, because the emptiness was hiding there too. 

"So, how does it feel to actually be able to say you were probed in an alien experiment?" Dr. Ripley intruded on Marin's mental decompression with his signature abrasiveness. 

"You are positively vile, Ethan." 

Dr. Ripley raised an eyebrow. "Is that all you got?" 

Marin heaved a sigh and unfolded herself from the chair. "To what do I owe the displeasure of the company of the Untalented Mr. Ripley?" 

"That's more like it." Dr. Ripley nodded agreeably. 

Marin let her cup clatter onto the coffee cart. "Okay, what do you want?" 

"What makes you think I want anything?" 

"It's three-thirty in the morning, Dripley. Shouldn't you be getting your beauty sleep?" 

"I couldn't sleep." 

Marin gave Dr. Ripley's over-eager grin a critical review, and realized exactly why he was there. "Geez, you are _sick_! You came out here thinking I'd what - kiss and tell?" 

Dr. Ripley shrugged. "It was an experiment, you have a duty to report your findings." 

"Look, if you thought we'd share a pizza and some girl talk, you're even more deluded than I think you are. And I think you're pretty deluded." 

"Marin, you're being irresponsible." 

"No, I'm not. I filed my report already. Anything you need to know is in the report. If anything isn't in there, you don't need to know it." Marin shot him a look that a more scrupulous man would have realized carried an intense desire to see him drawn and quartered. "You can read it if you want to. I'm going to bed." 

. . .

Clark sat fully dressed on the neatly made bed, trying to stop listening beyond the walls that surrounded him, yet unable to will himself to do so. He'd been listening since long before Dr. Ripley assaulted Marin with his crude insensitivity. He'd heard the sound of Marin's pen scratching out her account of the experience, and he heard the monumental effort it took for her to swallow her coffee past the growing lump of sadness in her throat. He even heard the sobs she tried to stifle despite the roar of water from her shower. 

Clark was suffering from an indefinable confusion. He felt something that wasn't exactly regret, something that wasn't exactly relief, and something else that wasn't exactly pleasure. He knew he'd felt each of those things individually at different moments, but in combination they stripped him of coherent thought and left him feeling isolated. 

Overrun with too many thoughts, Clark stretched out face-down on the narrow mattress and buried his face in the pillow, praying that if sleep came, it would be dreamless. 

. . .

Marin silently breathed the same prayer for dreamless sleep, but when it finally overcame her it was anything but blank. She slept fitfully, haunted by images of Clark and all the things she'd felt for and because of him. At last she woke, surprised to find that it was already nine o'clock, and was simultaneously struck with the fear that Clark had left already, and the fear that he was still there. She hated it when her emotions were so duplicitous. 

She groaned and rolled out of bed, pulled her hair into a ponytail and advanced cautiously into the hallway. She found Dr. Ripley in the hub with open files arranged on the table on front of him. Guessing it was her report, Marin glowered and picked up the empty coffee pot. "Would it have killed you to make some coffee, Ethan?" 

"Why, just for you?" Dr. Ripley didn't look up from his work. 

"Just me? Where's everybody else?" _Where's Clark_? 

"Dr. Crosby is escorting Dr. Swann back to New York, and Andrea went home about an hour ago. It's Sunday, remember? The special session in Clark's honor is over. " 

"Why are you still here?" 

"I'm just assembling the data so I can work on it over the break." 

""The break?" 

Dr. Ripley glanced up smugly. "Are you sure your little experiment had no ill effects? The one-week hiatus, genius. Dr. Crosby can't be here to supervise until next Monday, and she doesn't want the mice to play while the cat's away." 

"Oh yeah," Marin nodded glumly. "Yeah, I'm going to visit my parents." 

"Uh, yippie for you." 

"You're an ass, Ethan." 

"What was that for?" 

"Oh, just for being you," Marin replied with an exaggerated smile. "Um… when did Clark leave?" Marin knew she was opening herself up for another one of Dr. Ripley's wildly inappropriate jabs, but she didn't care. 

"He hasn't yet." 

Marin's heart did a cartwheel in her chest. "Oh?" 

"Well, he's not here, but he hasn't gone home yet. He went out for coffee." 

As if on cue, the elevator opened to reveal Clark, holding a plastic bag and a paper cup. "Hi," he greeted with a bright smile as he stepped into the hub. He held the cup out to Marin. "I got you some coffee." 

Marin smiled, relieved, and accepted the cup. "Thanks, Clark. You didn't have to do that." Her smile faded when Clark drew a PowerAde from the plastic bag and offered it to Dr. Ripley. _Even Ethan isn't below Clark's consideration. Why would it mean anything that he went to get me coffee_? 

"Well, I'd better go get my stuff." Clark turned down the hall to pack his bag. 

"I need some air," Marin announced to nobody in particular, and walked down the long back hallway to the garage elevator. 

She'd been leaning against the back of the store for about ten minutes, watching her breath turn white as she exhaled into the morning air, and clutching the hot cup to keep her hands warm. She heard the elevator chime inside the garage. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, hoping that maybe if she didn't see Clark, she wouldn't have to talk to him. Maybe he'd sheepishly sneak away like a normal guy, if she wasn't looking. Then she heard his voice. _Crap_. 

"Marin?" 

She opened her eyes and pretended to be surprised to see him there, looking younger than he had last night, with his red jacket and the small duffle bag slung over his shoulder. "Oh, hi Clark." She made a great show of very nonchalantly sipping her coffee. Clark stepped close to her, and her pulse involuntarily quickened. An awkward half-smile curled up one side of Clark's mouth, and Marin found herself transfixed by his lips. 

"I just… I uh - I wanted to say thank you… so… thank you." 

Marin looked down at the gravel around her shoes. "Oh, yeah - you're welcome." She sounded warmer than she felt. 

"And I'm sorry." 

Marin jerked her head up sharply. "What are you sorry for?" 

Clark looked up and around, anywhere but at her. He drew in an icy breath and let it out slowly, and finally let his own gaze settle on the gravel as well. "I just am." 

Marin nodded and crumbled a little more. _Of course he is_. She felt remorseful tears rising and was about to turn away to hide them, but then she felt Clark's lips on her cheek. She froze and in her shock the instant seemed to last forever, which wasn't long enough. 

Clark pulled back and stood up straight, looking as if the kiss had surprised him just as much as her. "I'm sorry - it was just an impulse, I - it was a weird thing to do, wasn't it?" 

Marin shook her head emphatically. "No, no, it was fine - really, it's okay." She smiled inwardly. "It was… nice." 

Clark looked doubtful, but nodded slightly and pulled his bag higher onto his shoulder. "Well, I should go." 

"Yeah, yeah. Have a safe trip." _Dummy_! 

Clark smiled. "I'll try. 'Bye Marin." 

"Goodbye, Clark." Marin touched a hand to her cheek and watched Clark Kent walk away. 

. . .

ONE WEEK LATER 

Marin waved at the clerk behind the register of the antique shop as she walked through the store and into the tiny office, making her way back to the lab. She was a day early, but she couldn't take one more minute of her mother asking why she seemed so "down in the dumps." In truth, she was beginning to feel better - there was just a lingering ache in the place in her heart that she futilely wished Clark would fill, but she knew he couldn't. 

The ache grew a bit when she unlocked her bunker and the memories in it, but she suppressed it and began to unpack. She was deep in thought and didn't hear it when a knock sounded on the frame of her open door. 

"Marin? Earth to Marin Blake!" 

Marin jumped and dropped an armload of laundry at the sound of the voice, and spun to find Dr. Ripley leaning against her wall. "Damn it, Ethan! What are you doing here? You're early." She turned and continued to unpack. 

"You're early too." 

"Well I live here, freak. I wanted to get settled back in before we get back to work. What's your excuse?" 

Dr. Ripley's eyes gleamed mischievously. "I want to show you something." 

"What?" 

"It's in the exam room." 

Marin rolled her eyes. "Ethan, I'm really tired, I just want to unpack and go to sleep." 

"It won't take long, I promise." 

"Will you leave me alone then?" 

"Yep, I'll give you the whole night off - no bugging you." 

"Fine," Marin relented, leaving her half-unpacked suitcase on her bed. "Let's go." 

Dr. Ripley lead her down the hall to the same exam room where they had triggered Clark's anti-gravity episode. "So, what's this all about?" Marin asked impatiently when they were both inside. 

"Just a minute, I have to set it up." Dr. Ripley rifled around amongst his instruments. "So, Marin, I was wondering - do you think you might be pregnant?" 

"_What_?" 

"Just making small-talk." 

"That's not small-talk, that's… that's very big talk. And completely inappropriate." 

Dr. Ripley shrugged like he so often did, as if none of his offensive behavior was ever more than an off-hand comment that people took too seriously. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it." 

"You're just plain nuts, Ethan!" 

"Come on, we all know you're infatuated with Clark. You're half the reason Andrea was so against the trial - she knew you'd volunteer, and she knew you wouldn't be able to live with it, because you couldn't keep him." 

"You're going way too far, Ripley!" Marin cried. "What makes you think you have the right to talk to me like this?" 

"Have you thought it might be easier for you?" He started to look more menacing, and Marin had the distinct impression that he had a specific purpose in his line of questioning. 

"What would be easier?" 

"Having his baby. Being able to keep a part of him." He was so matter-of-fact. 

Marin barely managed to keep her jaw from hitting the floor. "What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" 

"Think about it, Marin!" Dr. Ripley leered at her, and circled around to cut her off from the doorway. "He doesn't have to be the only one! You could be the mother of the next step in human evolution!" 

Marin's eyes widened as the horror of his insinuation struck her. "That's why you pushed so hard for this! You engineered this whole thing, didn't you? You brought it up to Andrea, she admitted being curious but she thought it was a bad idea - you manipulated us so you could - what? What do you get out of this?" 

"The thrill of discovery!" 

"Discovering what?" Marin kept her eyes on Dr. Ripley, but felt along the counter behind her for something sharp. 

"Everything! The chance to follow the gestation of an alien life-form? Observe it's interactions with human biology? And in early childhood - well, suppose the Kents had been better equipped to expose Clark to stimuli that may have uncovered various powers at an earlier age? If we can initiate those kinds of responses in his child, it may never matter that it's half human! Over time we could breed a race of Krypto-human hybrids - impervious to pain and illness - a super-race!" 

Marin's initial shock resurfaced, and brought nausea with it. "Why would you possible want that? A civilization of genetically superior beings? Does the name Hitler mean anything to you?" 

Dr. Ripley grabbed Marin's shoulders and moved in on her until their noses almost touched. "I'm not talking about an army of Ken-doll wannabes bent on oppressing the weaker of the species, I'm talking about a new species - one that can withstand this planet once we've finished weakening it. A time will come when it won't be able to sustain the kind of life that it does now, and that will mean human extinction. But don't you see Marin, it doesn't have to! Clark is the key - you must understand, a resource like him can't be treated like an Area 51 project. His reproduction is necessary, his descendants will be survivors, maybe his blood - and likewise their blood - could be used to develop biopharmaceuticals to genetically alter animals too. And he essentially recharges his strength through modified photosynthesis, so we may even be able to alter plants - but we need to be able to study him, or at least his offspring. There are so many possibilities! He could literally save the world, Marin!" Dr. Ripley's intensity had reached a fever pitch, and his grip on Marin's arms was paralyzing. 

"You can't force the planet to evolve," Marin managed to whisper weakly, awash with Dr. Ripley's horrible revelation. 

"On the contrary - I think there's a point at which human intelligence is meant to take over for the 'survival of the fittest' mentality. Humankind will not survive, _unless_ we force it to." Dr. Ripley smiled at her then, almost benevolently. "That's why I need you, Marin." 

She hated looking weak, but she couldn't stop the tears from streaming over her face. "Why?" 

"I need your baby. Yours and Clark's." 

Marin almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea. "I'm not _having_ a baby, you psychopath!" 

Dr. Ripley was eerily serene and unphased. "Yes, you are." 

"Oh, you know something I don't?" 

Dr. Ripley's grin was sickening. "Yes, I do." Without warning, he bodily scooped Marin up and had half-strapped her to the exam table before she realized what he'd done. 

"Let me go!" 

"I will, very soon, just calm down and this will be easier for you." 

"What are you going to do to me?" Marin pulled against the restraints, but she was held fast. 

"Remember the EF-19 trials, Marin?" Dr. Ripley was collecting a few vials and petrie dishes together. "In the early tests, the subjects lost consciousness for nearly twenty-four hours, and sometimes lost a week's worth of memories." 

Marin burst into sobs. "What did you do to me?" 

"You were a very compliant test subject, Marin." 

"_What did you do to me_?" 

"You know what's so great about being a biogeneticist in the private sector, with nobody watching over your shoulder to make sure you're following FDA procedure? You can develop better ways to do things, and faster ways - and you don't have to wait for FDA approval to use them. Things like - well, like harvesting eggs for in-vitro fertilization, for example. I can do it with no hormone protocol, non-invasively - virtually painlessly and with much better yields." Dr. Ripley was bragging now, as he went to a small refrigerator and took out a glass vial. 

"You _harvested_ my eggs!" Marin screamed. 

"Shh, calm down - it's in the interest of science, isn't it? I thought you were prepared to sacrifice anything to help Clark discover his true potential." 

"You stole my _eggs_." 

"Yes, well, progress isn't always very ethical. They were safe though - cryopreservation has come a long way. And of course I have all I need from Clark, of his own free will." 

"No!" 

"The embryos are ready. Don't worry, implanting is the easy part." 

"_No_!" Marin screamed and tried in vain to twist out of the leather straps, but to no avail. 

Dr. Ripley sat next to Marin and raised up the vial he'd taken from the fridge. 

Marin caught a glimpse of the label. _EF-19_. 

Dr. Ripley drew the liquid into a syringe. "Don't worry about any of this, Marin. You won't remember a thing." 

Marin fought as best she could, but lost the battle to the needle in her arm as the world slipped away. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

AUTHOR'S NOTE: _This chapter contains a lyric from the song "Moments" from the musical _Into the Woods_ by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim._

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The first couple of weeks at home after the trials at Dr. Swann's lab seemed to ease the heaviness of Clark's demeanor. Jonathan and Martha had worried when he arrived home much later than expected, and with a countenance that hinted at yet another weight he'd decided to bear - evidently alone, because he denied that anything was amiss. 

He'd thrown himself into his chores and schoolwork, and with the new added distraction of football, he was able to push Marin and everything else that happened that weekend in Metropolis out of his mind for a while. 

It was only a problem at night, long after sunset when the farm's work was finished for the day and he had only the stars to keep him company. He tried to focus on them, to remember the fascination they'd held for him before he knew what he really was. He'd lost that fascination when he learned about Jor-El and his supposed destiny, and began to resent the cosmos simply for reminding him of the existence of other worlds, therefore reminding him that he did not belong in this one. 

But now, he realized that he'd lost even the resentment. He had disappointed himself in his effort to strengthen his bond with his humanity, and in doing so he began to understand why Jor-El believed humans to be so flawed, so in need of powerful rule. _To err is human, to forgive divine_. To err is human… was that an excuse? A reason? Were the two things really so different? Freedom of choice was such a treasure to people, but their choices brought them such pain, so many questions. Was choice a gift? A weakness? Jor-El had experienced the most bitter of consequences as a result choices made on this planet. Was Jor-El wise to not give him one? 

But then, how could Clark know who he was, if it wasn't who he chose to be? 

. . .

"You know, this may seem like a tedious formality, but it is customary to turn in an article you were assigned _before_ the _Torch_ goes to print." Chloe advanced brashly up the stairs to Clark's loft with her usual snark announcing her presence. 

Clark looked up from the couch, where he was attacking a sheet of paper with a red pen. "It's almost done, I'm giving it a brutal edit first." 

Chloe dropped onto the couch next to him. "You may be bigger, Clark, but I'd wager I'm the brutish one. Hand it over," she demanded, holding her hand out expectantly. 

Clark relinquished the page and watched Chloe's face as she shifted into editorial gear. "I was kind of distracted when I wrote it, which is why there's so much red ink." 

"Shh!" Chloe put up a hand to silence him as she finished perusing the article. At last she stuck out her lower lip and nodded concedingly. "A profusion of typos, yes, but strong composition. There's just one thing…" she allowed herself to trail off, giving Clark time to look perplexed and question that "one thing." 

"What?" Clark asked, with the anticipated perplexion. 

Chloe smiled the way she often does when she tries not to be condescending, but since she's a step ahead she can't really help it. "Well, it's a good fluff piece on the parking lot resurfacing, but it's freshman work." 

"Hey, it may not be Pulitzer worthy, but it's not freshman -" 

"I meant it's a freshman _assignment_, Clark." She smiled at him, a bit amused at his easily bruised ego. "Which is why I assigned it to a freshman. I gave you the profile of this year's varsity football team, since you're a jockstrap yourself now. How did you end up with this?" 

Clark looked down at his heavily edited article. "You said you left a note on your desk for me to pick up after football practice - that's what I found." 

Chloe clapped a hand over her forehead. "Ah! I said the same thing to the kid that I assigned the pavement detail to - she must have taken the wrong one. I sent a freshman girl to cover the jockstraps!" Chloe groaned. "Ugh, excuse the imagery." She took her cell phone from her pocket as she rose to leave. "Sorry for the fly-by, but I have to run some damage control. In case she didn't do it, can I count on you to get me that team profile for the next edition?" 

"Sure thing - I don't remember anyone interviewing the team yet anyway." 

"Excellent. And thanks for the pavement puff. You almost met the deadline!" 

Clark rolled his eyes at her. "Well, it might have been in sooner if I hadn't been sitting here trying to make it worthy of my neurotically perfectionist editor." 

"Hey, I am not neur - okay, well I'm not a perf - well I _am_ the editor, so I have an excuse! And now off I go, in pursuit of perfection. See you later, Clark!" 

. . .

The next day arrived with overcast skies and, for Lois, an equally overcast demeanor. She hadn't seen or talked to Clark since he'd caught her following him to the convenience store. It wasn't for lack of trying - she'd called his house more times than she cared to admit, but was always given the runaround by Mr. or Mrs. Kent. "He's at football practice," was what she usually got from Martha, or Jonathan would say "sorry Lois, the cows can't milk themselves - I'll tell Clark you called when he's finished with his chores." She didn't want to appear desperate, but she was - she didn't like not knowing who she was with or what had happened to her for three hours on a Friday night, and she was very unsettled by the knowledge that Clark had something to do with it. There might be more to this farm-boy than she had first thought, and she wasn't exactly comfortable with that idea. 

It had been two weeks since she awoke in her apartment with no memory of how she got there, with only Chris to provide her with any answers. Clark's pure and boyish charm was disarming, to say the least - she couldn't have believed that there was any truly underhanded notion behind those innocent eyes - despite the less-than-modest circumstances of their first meeting. Could she really have been so taken in by a façade that she never suspected he might be someone else entirely? She didn't like to think so. 

So now, as she drove to Smallville for answers on a Saturday morning, she mulled over every little detail she could recall about Clark Kent - primarily how those details didn't quite add up. 

. . .

"Dr. Crosby, really, I don't think we need to perform any follow-up lab work - I'm fine. It's been two weeks, all is well." Marin was trying to worm her way out of following Dr. Crosby's post-experimental protocol. 

"Just do it to humor me at least, Marin. Better safe than sorry. We'll just do basic blood work and a urinalysis - shouldn't need more than that." 

"Shouldn't even need that," Marin muttered under her breath. 

Dr. Crosby raised an eyebrow. "Marin, it was a risky trial, and we knew that. I'm not leaving anything to chance. I'll analyze the samples myself, if that helps. For my own peace of mind, of not for yours." 

"Fine, give me a specimen cup and let's get this over with." 

. . .

Despite her efforts not to, Marin gave in and indulged her memory one last time, using the fact that Dr. Crosby was running one last test as an excuse to keep from finally letting go. After the test was over, she'd push it from her mind and heart forever. Yes, that's what she would do. 

But for now, she would remember. 

_The knock on her door came gently, just after one o'clock. Her hand shook as she opened the door, and she tried to keep the nervous elation she felt from showing when she saw Clark on the other side. _

"Can I… um… come in?" He glanced beyond her shoulder into the dimly lit room, as if expecting to see something that would keep him out. 

"Sure, of course," Marin whispered, not wanting to draw attention from those resting in the other bunkers. She stepped back and opened the door wider to allow Clark to slip through, and then closed it silently behind him. She turned to find him standing with his back to her, arms pressed across his chest as if he were trying to take up as little space as possible. 

"You want to… sit down?" 

Clark looked at her blankly and then nodded. "Okay." He sat in the plastic chair at her small writing desk. 

Marin smiled wanly. "Um, on the bed?" 

Clark looked momentarily confused - or perhaps apprehensive, but then nodded again. "Oh. Okay," and he moved to the bed. 

Marin sat next to him, leaving almost a foot of space between their bodies. They sat in silence for an interminable moment, and Marin turned her head to look at him. He was staring at - or possibly through - the opposite wall, his hands gripping the mattress and his bare toes just grazing the floor. "You know, if you kick your feet little, you'll look just like a ten-year-old who's waiting to have a tooth pulled." 

Clark's chest heaved with the release of nervous laughter, but he quickly sobered. "Yeah," he sighed wistfully. 

Marin moved to close the gap between them by a few inches. "It doesn't have to be like pulling teeth." 

Clark finally tore his eyes off the wall and looked at Marin's face. "I'm sorry. It's not you, it's - " 

"Oh no," Marin interrupted. "No 'it's not you, it's me' speeches! I hate clichés, especially in clinical trials." She smiled lightheartedly, hoping her levity might loosen up the situation. 

She was rewarded with Clark's brilliant, if somewhat remorseful smile. "You're right. It's just that - well, it's not that I don't want to do this, because… well, of course I technically want to do this, it's just that you're - " 

Marin raised a finger to his mouth to quiet him, not wanting to hear him say that he really just didn't want to do it with her. She still needed to pretend. "Maybe this will be easier if we don't talk." 

"But - " 

Marin silenced him again, this time with a kiss. She held his head between her hands and pressed herself against him, and for one terrible instant she feared that he wouldn't requite her, that he would remain despondent or push her away. Then his hand was on the small of her back, and he drew her closer. 

If life were made of moments, even now and then a bad one… but if life were only moments, then you'd never know you had one._ It was a near-perfect moment, when she had Clark's attention and his body, and his arms around her and his lips pressed against hers - "_

"Marin?" Dr. Crosby called to her with an accompanying knock on her door. Marin no longer liked the sound of knocking. 

"Yeah, come in,' she called, sitting up and rubbing wetness out of her eyes. 

Dr. Crosby said nothing as she entered the room and crossed to sit next to Marin on the bed. She had begun to think of Marin as a sort of daughter, though she'd never been beyond the door of her bunker. She had watched her flourish during her work with Dr. Swann, and saw much of herself in her youth. And much like a watchful mother, Dr. Crosby had difficulty putting into words the news she had come to deliver. 

So heavy and lengthy was Dr. Crosby's silence that Marin drifted back to her daydream. 

_Marin wrapped her arms around Clark's shoulders and pulled him with her as she lay down. He was still hesitant, but now he couldn't pretend that he wanted to keep his distance. He deepened the kiss and allowed his body to settle against hers. He brushed his thumb lightly over her cheek and felt a runaway tear. Abruptly, he broke the kiss and looked down into her expectant eyes. "Marin?"_

"Marin," Dr. Crosby began. "This isn't going to be easy to say, but the urinalysis showed something." 

Marin blinked and tried to remember which reality she was in, and then shrugged inwardly at Dr. Crosby's words. _So?_ "And what did it show?" 

Dr. Crosby calmed herself with a series of deep inhalations and exhalations before dropping the curtain. "You're pregnant." 

Marin's jaw dropped for a split second, and then she began to laugh. She laughed heartily and thickly, expecting Dr. Crosby to join in - because it had to be a joke. 

"I don't see what's so funny," Dr. Crosby mused. 

"Oh, you don't? You really had me going there, for a second - very serious, very straight-faced. Nice one, Dr. C! There's a sense of humor in there after all!" 

"Marin, I'm serious - the test is conclusive, I ran it three times to be sure - it's true, Marin. You're pregnant." 

Marin's face fell at Dr. Crosby's obviously earnest argument. "But that's impossible." 

Dr. Crosby became slightly parental. "Well, no, you did have sex, it's not impossible - you're a smart girl, you know how these things happen." 

"Oh, but this thing - this thing did not happen!" 

Dr. Crosby looked frustrated. "Look, I understand that it's hard to grasp this right now, but how can you say that it's impossible?" 

Marin's eyes widened and her mind retreated once more to her memory. 

_"Marin?" Clark repeated. He sat back suddenly. "Marin, I'm sorry, I can't - we can't… This was a mistake." He scrambled off the bed and folded himself into the plastic chair across the room. _

He'd moved so fast that Marin could almost still feel his weight above her before she knew he wasn't there anymore. She lay there for a moment, praying that her over-dramatic subconscious was fooling her with a masochistic subplot, but then she turned and looked at Clark's face. She sat up slowly - very slowly, so that she wouldn't leave the truth on her pillow and then have to have it hit her again. "Okay," was all she could say. 

Marin's words to Dr. Crosby were said dryly, but her eyes spoke with tearful ardor. "Because we didn't do it." 


	12. Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

Clark was repairing one of the many fences that snaked through the Kent farm - or at least he was supposed to be. His subconscious had claimed him just as the autumn sun began to sink into the horizon, and now he leaned on a newly-driven post, wandering through his only slightly distant past. 

_"Marin, please try to understand," Clark pleaded. _

"I do," she replied, her voice cracking as she failed to suppress her reaction. "I do understand." She understood that the average boy Clark's age would probably jump at the chance of no-strings-attached sex. What she didn't understand was that Clark could see the strings that the average boy wouldn't even think about. 

"I can explain," Clark offered. 

Marin couldn't imagine any comforting explanations. "You don't have to." 

"I want to - please? I need to." 

Marin bit her lip and squeezed her eyes against the tears, but they bled through anyway. I needed something too - I just needed to pretend. Why couldn't you pretend with me?_ "Fine." _

Clark drew a deep breath and laid out his words in his head before he spoke them. "I knew before I came back to your room that I didn't have to go through with this. I already had the answer." 

Marin was confused, as her face plainly showed. 

Clark was stung by the lost expression on her face, but he had to continue. "When I left before and went back to my room, I remembered Jor-El and Louise, Lana's great aunt. I'm assuming you know about that." 

Marin nodded in recognition and a fresh wave of sadness consumed her - she understood Clark's reasoning now, but it almost made it worse. 

"Nothing happened to Louise - not from sleeping with Jor-El, anyway. So there's nothing I need to prove or disprove, right?" Clark fervently hoped that the obvious logic of this idea would be enough for Marin, and as she said nothing to the contrary, he went on. "So I figured this part of the test wasn't necessary, and any biological reactions or whatever could be tested in the lab, if anyone thinks it's needed." 

Marin nodded solemnly. "So, you got it all figured out." 

"Yeah, I think so." 

Marin glared at him in both anger and humiliation. "Then why did you come back here?" She almost choked on the words and barely managed to spit them out, but Clark recognized them instantly - because those were the words he was hoping she wouldn't say. 

Clark repositioned himself on the uncomfortable chair and looked down at his toes. "I… I'd say I'm only human, but you know better." 

Marin looked genuinely appalled. "Wow_. That was… incredibly cheap of you, Clark." She stood and went to the corner opposite him, as far from Clark as she could be in the tiny room. "So, what, you thought 'hey, good for me, I figured this out all on my own, but what the hell - she's ready and willing, might as well go for it!' Is that why you came back here?" Marin was half-crouched against the wall, her arms crossed protectively over herself as if to ward off the pain of Clark's reply. _

Clark stood, and his rueful eyes didn't look away from hers as his visage shifted from shameful to wounded. "That's not what I meant, I'm sorry I said that." He would have been almost inaudible, if not for Marin's need to hear him. He blinked a few times and renewed the air in his lungs, preparing to try again. "I kept going around and around it in my head, and then I was thinking about you, and then yeah, for one minute, I said to myself 'why not? If you know it's safe, why not?' And that was the minute I came back here. I lost my nerve when I got in the door, but then you kissed me and - okay, maybe it wasn't right, but it honestly felt good to actually be acting on an impulse for once, and I didn't want to stop - I really didn't want to stop - but it all came back to me, what you said about ideals and conventions and not being bound by them - but then I realized that I could be bound by at least this one thing - this one normal thing. Like you said, the rules don't apply to me like they do to normal people, but this one old-fashioned thing does, and I want to keep it." 

Marin couldn't bring herself to maintain her indignation in the face of Clark's hopeful sincerity. She tried to imagine what it must be like to have only a few threads of normalcy to cling to - those conventions that people take for granted or fight against - and how tempestuous it would be to have to constantly wrestle with demons that no one else has ever fought. She couldn't fault Clark for that. Part of her actually felt a tinge of happiness, because he'd been thinking about her - he said so himself - and he came back to her because he wanted to, not out of obligation. It was an odd sort of satisfaction. 

She stepped up to Clark and, without warning, raised herself up on her toes and embraced him around the neck. "Then you should keep it." 

A bittersweet tingle ran from the roots of Marin's hair and down to her toenails when Clark hugged her in return, just because he wanted to. 

Clark looked around and realized that the sunset had long since passed, and the evening breeze carried his mother's voice as she called him in for dinner. He quickly finished with the fence and left it behind, but the guilt of Marin's wounded heart followed him out of the memory. 

. . .

Dr. Ripley broke into a cold sweat as he hastily packed his array of samples and studies into whatever containers he could find. There were many things that he thought were beneath him, but eavesdropping wasn't one of them, and he was just outside the slightly ajar door to Marin's room when she confessed that she and Clark had in fact not gone through with it and had faked the report. Panic stricken, he raced into his quarters and collected all of the lab's data, which he'd been secretly compiling in its entirety on a series of discs. He pocketed them and set about retrieving as much of the remainder of his work as he could, knowing that it wouldn't take long before someone's accurately accusing finger would be pointed at him. Andrea didn't know about the pregnancy yet, he was certain - she wouldn't have sequestered herself in the diagnostics lab with a model of Clark's ear if she knew. He was counting on Dr. Crosby playing the role of comforting mother just long enough for him to make his escape. 

With two black nylon bags slung over his shoulders and the discs containing everything there was to know about Clark Kent tucked securely into an inside pocket, Dr. Ethan Ripley ran down the long back hallway of Dr. Swann's covert lab for the last time. 

. . .

Clark was clearing the dinner dishes from the table when a knock sounded at the Kents' kitchen door. "Come in," he beckoned welcomingly in the tradition of small-town trust. 

"Hi Clark," Chloe chirped brightly. "Hi Mrs. Kent, Mr. Kent. Hope we weren't interrupting dinner." 

Martha and Jonathan nodded in greeting as Clark answered for all of them. "Nope, just finished," he assured her as he looked over her shoulder. "Who's 'we?'" 

"What?" Chloe looked to her left, clearly expecting someone to be standing there. She rolled her eyes and called through the screen door behind her. "Yeah, Lois. Standing under a light bulb and swatting blindly is going to keep the mosquitos away. You know what works better? Walls." 

"I'm coming!" came a muffled reply. "Just thought showing up uninvited was rude enough, so I should probably ditch my new friends first. Although they seem to find me irresistible! Are there even supposed to be mosquitos in October?" 

Clark raised an eyebrow at Chloe. "Not being invited - that means something to her?" 

Chloe laughed and glanced through the screen again before leaning toward Clark in confidence. "Of course not - and it's not really the mosquitos. Well, not just the mosquitoes. She was running around behind the barn and stepped in something that, truthfully, I'd rather not smell again, so thankfully she's trying to clean it off." Chloe laughed again musically. "But I have photographic evidence!" 

Lois suddenly appeared behind her, wearing only socks on her feet. "You'll keep that evidence under wraps if you know what's good for you." 

"Or what?" 

"Or… you'll be sleepin' with the fishes and wearin' a pair a concrete shoes," Lois mock-threatened, adopting her best De Niro, which was terrible. 

"Looks like you're the one who could use the shoes," Clark teased. 

Lois rolled her eyes. "Nice to see you too, Kent. Have I mentioned yet just how much I miss the luxurious accessibility of farm living? I mean, I can't tell you how hard it is to get a pair of suede boots properly fertilized in Metropolis." 

"Well, until you learn to watch your step, I suggest you try not to put your foot in your mouth." Clark paused, replaying in his mind what Chloe had said a moment ago. "What were you doing behind the barn?" 

"Clark?" Martha called from the sink. "Why don't you bring me the last of the dishes and then you can go." 

"Okay," Clark obliged and carried the remaining plates and flatware to the sink. He was about turn back when Martha grabbed his sleeve. 

"Clark," she whispered, watching to make sure Lois wasn't looking. "Please be careful - she's obviously here to find out what happened in Metropolis - " 

"Don't worry, Mom." Clark gave her his best responsible smile and went back to join Chloe and Lois. "So, not that you need a reason, Chloe, but do you have one for coming over?" 

"Nice to know I don't need a reason," Chloe smiled and threw a sidelong glance in Lois' direction. "But it actually wasn't me who wanted to see you." 

Clark feigned surprised, and then he pretended to pout. "You mean you didn't want to see me, Chloe?" 

Chloe's face reddened. "Why don't we all go talk in the loft?" 

"Um, hello, I'm a little challenged in the footwear department," Lois reminded them. 

"You want to borrow something?" Clark offered. 

Lois grimaced. "And get farm-boy cornfield sweat on my socks? Is there a detergent strong enough to get that out?" 

Clark rolled his eyes. "I meant to borrow something from my _mom_, genius. But suit yourself - I'm sure cow-pie stomping is even more fun with only socks." 

. . .

Lionel Luthor had been poring over the latest edition of the Daily Planet - procured from one of the prison guards - when he was told he had a visitor. Intrigued, and perhaps less troubled than he should have been by the fact that the visitor gave no name by which to be announced, he agreed to the visitation and waited as patiently as you'd expect of an incarcerated billionaire. 

When the stranger appeared and stood silently on the other side of the cage that bound him, Lionel spoke. "You have me at a disadvantage, and quite literally like a caged animal I am more apt to defend myself with malice, if provoked. I do not enjoy playing the underdog, so I suggest you recover quickly from what you doubtlessly perceive as your triumph with the element of surprise, and tell me your name and why it should be of any interest to me." 

The visitor stepped closer and smiled - a devious smile with which Lionel felt a certain kinship. "Mr. Luthor," he greeted with perhaps too much familiarity. "I guarantee that what I have will be of interest to you." 

Lionel crossed his arms over his chest and tapped the fingers of one hand against the opposite elbow. "I'm still waiting for the name of the guarantor." 

The confident smile didn't whither in the wake of Lionel's glare. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir. I'm Dr. Ethan Ripley." 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jonathan and Martha were peering through the ruffled curtains at the light shining from the loft. They knew they couldn't expect to see anything, but neither of them could quell their anxiety over Lois Lane's presence. Clark had told them everything that had happened in Metropolis (with the exception of what almost happened with Marin), and combined with what they knew of Lois' tenacity, they were extremely unsettled. 

"You know she won't give up until she knows everything," Martha stated. 

"Well, she won't give up until she knows enough to satisfy her curiosity. Maybe that won't take everything," Jonathan mused hopefully. 

"We should have all tried to come up with something to tell her - at least then we'd have an idea of what's going on." 

"Clark can handle it," Jonathan said with more confidence than his expression showed. 

Martha turned and looked at Jonathan with a raised eyebrow. "Oh yeah, Clark's an excellent liar." 

"He's managed to keep his secret this long." 

"Barely! And most of the people he's had to keep it from aren't trying to figure out if he's responsible for making them lose three hours of their memories. And Lois - well, there's something about her - I'm just worried about Clark." 

Jonathan smiled. "I wouldn't worry too much. You heard how they talked just now - Clark seems to be thinking on his toes." He paused and chuckled to himself. "I don't think he's going to let Lois push him around." 

"That's sort of what worries me," Martha confessed. "He's pretty careful with how he talks to most people, but with Lois - he seems more… well, he's quicker with the comebacks. He thinks faster, but not as carefully. What if he just slips up?" 

"Give him a little credit, Martha." Despite his assured tone, Jonathan still threw a concerned glance out the window. "He won't tell her anything." 

"I don't know," Martha answered absently as she shook her head. Then she smiled, half-knowingly and half-apprehensively. "He likes her." 

"You think so?" Jonathan looked skeptical. 

Martha nodded and her smile pulled itself wider. "Oh, definitely. That's why he's so quick with the comebacks." 

"That means he likes her?" 

Martha rolled her eyes. "I know it was a long time ago, Jonathan, but you do remember high school romance, don't you?" 

Jonathan winced. "I try so hard to forget. And it wasn't _that_ long ago." 

Martha laughed. "But you know I'm right." 

"As usual," Jonathan conceded. "But Lois and Clark? I'm not so sure about that." 

. . .

Lois was leaning next to the telescope looking up at the night sky. "It's a nice clear night. That's the one drawback about Metropolis - you can't see the sky like this at night." 

"That's not the only drawback," Clark challenged. 

"You're right," Lois agreed as she turned around to face Clark and Chloe, who were both seated on the couch. "You can also lose parts of your memory in Metropolis. I doubt you can do that here." 

"You'd be surprised," Chloe muttered. 

Clark looked upset and turned to Chloe. "Is that why you brought her here? To grill me about something that happened two weeks ago?" 

"Hey!" Chloe cried. "Ever heard the saying 'don't kill the messenger?' She just showed up and said she had to come here, so I said I'd go with her. I didn't know why - I don't even know what happened two weeks ago. Somebody want to clue me in?" 

Clark ignored Chloe's request and rose to address Lois. "I told you what I knew about it," he spat. "And you're the one who followed me! I should be interrogating you, about all these phone calls and now just dropping in like this! What is it that you think I can tell you?" 

Chloe watched the scene unfold in confusion, and slightly frightened by Clark's anger, which she'd only seen when he discovered how deeply she herself had tried to pry into his life. Now it appeared that her cousin had committed the same offense, and Clark's defensiveness only served to confirm her suspicions that he was hiding something monumental. 

"Oh, come off it, Kent!" Lois exclaimed with a fire of her own. "Something about what you told me doesn't add up, and need I remind you that you haven't actually taken a single one of my calls. What choice did I have?" 

"You could have accepted what I told you and let it go." 

"Oh yeah, I'm just going to accept that I lost three hours of my memory and you and some girl_ happened_ to bring me home, and that's all you know about it." 

"Why not?" 

"Because it doesn't make any sense!" 

"How doesn't it make sense?" 

"Well, for starters, my suitcase." 

"I agree, your suitcase is inexplicable." 

Chloe smiled despite the gravity of the conversation. _Nice one, Clark. When did you get so good at verbal tennis?_

Lois growled in exasperation. "Chris said you carried me in." 

"Yeah, that's been established." 

"But you didn't have my suitcase." 

"Sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to be able to carry you and the world's largest suitcase." 

"How did you get me and my suitcase from my the bus station to my building?" 

"We took a cab." 

"And we all fit? You, me, Marin, and my suitcase?" 

"The suitcase was in the trunk. It didn't quite fit so I suggested putting you in there instead, but the driver wouldn't let me." 

"Who's Marin?" Chloe piped up, although she was starting to enjoy the argument. 

Lois answered Chloe without looking away from Clark. "Oh, she's an old friend of his, isn't that right, Clark?" 

"No she's not, she's a - nevermind. Anyway yeah, we all fit in the cab. What's your point?" 

"My point is that Chris saw you, Marin, and me - no suitcase." 

"I left it outside the door - for some reason I thought getting you inside the building was more important." 

"Chris saw you leave. You never brought it in." 

"We did leave, but then we remembered the suitcase. He had already left the lobby to take you upstairs." 

"Then where did you leave the suitcase?" Lois knew full well that Chris had found it the next morning in the utility closet. 

Clark racked his brain, knowing that question was a test. The only way out was to have no way of knowing. "I don't know, Marin was the one who went back for it. She brought it in." 

"Ha! You expect me to believe your farm-boy sensibilities allowed you to let a girl carry that thing?" 

"I let you do it, didn't I? Besides, somebody informed me that Metropolis girls manage just fine with no - how did you put it? Hay-balin' muscle?" 

_Damn, he got me. I can't prove anything this way._ "Oh, you… ugh! I know there's something you're not telling me." 

"You're right, I'm sorry. You were actually held captive in an alien research facility, where they erased your memory so you'd forget everything you saw." 

Lois looked disgusted and hit Clark's shoulder. "Don't be so… high school." 

. . .

Lionel had long-since abandoned the Daily Planet in favor of the reams of data that Dr. Ripley had given him. He devoured each page, growing both more hungry and sated in the knowledge that his suspicions about Clark Kent had not been unfounded. 

_"Why are you bringing this to me?" _

"Dr. Swann has the resources, but he lacks the foresight to take advantage of what stands to be gained from this endeavor. You, on the other hand, have both. I knew you would understand what needs to done." 

Lionel continued to peruse Dr. Ripley's synopsis, trying not to look too pleased by the information, and given his prolific experience in high-stakes negotiation, it wasn't difficult. "And what is it that you expect me to do from behind bars?" 

Dr. Ripley gave Lionel his dastardly grin again. "Your reach is no shorter from here than it is anywhere else." 

Lionel nodded, matter-of-factly. "That may be so. Is this all of the data you were able to take with you?" 

Dr. Ripley nodded affirmatively. "Yes, except for the samples." 

"The samples?" 

"Yes, fluid and tissue. They're in a cooler in my car, but they can't stay there long." 

"Of course not. I expect to have those properly stored within the hour. Now, about the circumstances of your departure from Dr. Swann. I must admit that this news disappoints me, Dr. Ripley." 

Dr. Ripley looked befuddled. "I don't understand." 

"While I do applaud the boldness of your intervention with Ms. Blake's… condition, I'm troubled that you didn't verify the facts beforehand." 

"She falsified the report, I had no way of knowing it wasn't true!" Dr. Ripley was aghast and defensive. 

"Indeed, her report is thorough and convincing. A fine piece of fiction. But I'm sure you could have found another way to know what happens behind closed doors, Dr. Ripley. Given your apparent attraction to subversive ethics." Dr. Ripley opened his mouth to protest, but Lionel held up a hand to give him pause. "Now, don't misunderstand - I certainly don't disapprove of the subversion, but facts are facts, and we must all be judged by them. I must judge you by the fact that you acted rashly - carelessly, in fact, without enough regard for your position. The beauty of your plan was that - had Ms. Blake and Mr. Kent completed the trial, you could have observed the progression of her pregnancy, and kept yourself above suspicion." 

"But I did get out with all of the data, and all of the samples. Doesn't that count for something?" 

"Indeed it does," Lionel answered languidly, stroking his chin. "Indeed it does. Just not quite enough, I'm afraid." 

"What are you saying?" Dr. Ripley was finally starting to lose his unwavering confidence. 

"I'm saying that actions taken without proper consideration of all the variables can have dire consequences. You're a scientist, Dr. Ripley. Surely you're not unfamiliar with consideration of variables." 

Dr. Ripley swallowed thickly, but couldn't speak. 

"You should have known better." 

"I - " 

"In fact, you did know better, but you did not make enough of an effort to be certain, and as a result you lost a precious opportunity. That shows weakness, Dr. Ripley, which I can not abide." 

"But Mr. Luthor - " Dr. Ripley was panicked now, while Lionel continued to appear indifferent, as if he were discussing nothing more weighty than the weather. 

"Weakness makes you a liability, Dr. Ripley." 

"Mr. Luthor, please, I can - " 

Lionel held up his hand again to silence him, and then beckoned to the guard at the door. "Would you please have the good doctor escorted back to his vehicle?" The guard nodded to Lionel with a glimmer of understood purpose in his eye, and gripped the arm of the astonished Dr. Ripley as he led him to the door. "Oh, Dr. Ripley?" Lionel called, making it sound like an afterthought. "I thought you should know you were right." 

"A… about what?" 

"My reach does extend far beyond these bars." 

As Lionel continued to flip through the pages, the guard returned from his errand. 

"Has the good doctor been taken care of?" 

"Yes, Mr. Luthor." 

"And the samples?" 

"En route to your warehouse, sir." 

"Excellent." 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lying sideways, Marin stared at the long-treasured photo on her bedside table. She was happy then - happy just to have somebody, although somewhere deep inside she knew it wasn't real. She knew it wasn't her that Jake wanted, it was her sister - younger, vivacious, always with a smile ready rather than a smirk. But everybody wanted Jenna, so Jake snaked his way into Marin's heart instead. When Jenna's heart was broken by one of her many admirers, Jake was close enough to pick up the pieces, and neither he nor Jenna seemed to care that it was only Marin who felt the wound. 

Bitterness followed Marin, clung to her like molasses and wrapped her in an impermeable loneliness. When Dr. Swann's offer to work for him came, she readily accepted the chance to escape from all the eyes who'd seen her fall, all those who knew both her and Jenna - because they all chose Jenna. Like Tolkein's Smeagol she sank into her own underworld, avoided people like the daylight, and became enraptured with one precious thing. 

Clark. 

His rejection of her didn't hurt anymore. She understood it now, and even found it comforting to know that he couldn't bring himself to use her. She'd been used before. She thought she could live with lying inside as long as she had her one precious moment to tuck away and keep for herself - one quiet memory. 

But it wasn't that memory she missed now, as tears slipped silently over her cheek to collect on her pillow. While anxious footsteps raced up and down the halls and irate voices called back and forth as things were discovered missing, Marin searched herself for the one memory that eluded her. 

Conception. 

She couldn't bring herself to think about who - although she had suspicions - and thinking about how it happened racked her body with sobs. Dr. Prescott had done a pelvic exam, but there was no evidence of rape. It had occurred too long ago. Marin was terrified at the thought of who had probably impregnated her. She had so many questions swimming through her mind, and found herself wondering about every night that she slept exceptionally soundly, all the mornings she woke up feeling like she had a hangover, but hadn't touched a drop. All the things that might have been done to her, courtesy of a convenient illegal sedative. 

_Am I carrying Ethan's baby_? 

. . .

Dr. Ripley tried to drag his feet as he was lead out of the penitentiary. He'd seen the look exchanged between Lionel and the guard - he knew this man was on Lionel Luthor's payroll. He also knew that Lionel Luthor did not make idle threats, and reminding Dr. Ripley of his vast sphere of influence - even as a caged bird - was clearly not an idle threat. 

"Where is your car?" the guard prodded. 

"Um… I can't remember where I parked." 

"Want an electric shock to refresh your memory?" 

_A genuine Luthor thug. Great_. "No, I uh… I can find it." He pretended to survey the lot in search of his vehicle - a somewhat comical move, as there were very few cars in the lot. "Ah, there it is," he said finally, and strode toward a late-90's maroon Toyota Camry. 

"Is that the cooler?" the guard asked, approaching the passenger window. 

Dr. Ripley rolled his eyes. "Yes, Socrates, that is indeed a cooler." 

"You got a bad attitude, you know that? Most people on Luthor's list aren't so quick to talk back. Makes me irritable." 

"I can't be on his list, I have something he wants!" Dr. Ripley insisted frantically. 

"Yes you do," the guard sneered. "And it's in that cooler. That's all he needs from you." 

Dr. Ripley's eyes widened in terror. "You mean - " 

"Shut up. Your ride's here," the guard interrupted as a van pulled up and a man jumped out of its side door. "Give him your keys." Dr. Ripley didn't move. "Give him your keys _now_," he growled. 

Dr. Ripley handed over the keys and watched as the man drove away in his car, while Dr. Ripley and the cooler were shoved into the van. 

"Luthor wants him taken care of, so you know what to do," the prison guard addressed the van's driver as he bound and gagged Dr. Ripley. 

The driver nodded, smiling in a sickening manner that mirrored Dr. Ripley's own smug expression only moments earlier. "Consider it done." 

. . .

"She'll be back, she just has to walk it off," Chloe said to Clark apologetically after Lois made a defiantly theatrical exit from the barn, spouting various expletives as she expressed her frustration with Clark. "So, do I have to interrogate you too, or are you going to tell me what this is all about?" 

Clark shook his head and looked at Chloe. "It's just… stupid, and it's over, and I'm kind of sick of talking about it." 

"Well, it's news to me, and therefore still novel, so I'd like the full report please." 

Clark played over his options. He knew Chloe better than to think she'd stop asking, but just like Lois she'd probably want to dig further once she knew the truth. On the other hand, she'd find out from Lois anyway, so he may as well tell her himself and try to downplay whatever may cast him in a suspicious light. "I don't really know what happened - she seems to think I do, and that's why she's mad at me, but all I know is that I went back to the bus station in Metropolis to look for my keys a little after eleven o'clock, and I saw Lois there wandering around like she was on something - probably was - and she asked me to take her home, and then she passed out. We hailed a cab and I carried her into her building. That's all." 

"That's not all," Chloe prompted. 

"What? Oh yeah, the suitcase." 

"Not quite." 

"What else is there?" 

"Marin?" Chloe didn't want to say more than that. She felt invisible enough to Clark compared to other girls - not just Lana, but lately it was Lois too, and now it seemed he may have had somebody else in Metropolis all this time - somebody that Chloe knew nothing about. 

Clark sank onto the couch again and rested his head against the back with his eyes closed. "Yeah, Marin was there, but she's… hard to explain." 

"Hard to explain like meteor mutants, or hard to explain like your relationship with Lana?" Sometimes Chloe was bolder than even she thought was wise. 

Clark turned to Chloe suddenly, too quickly for her to withdraw the jealousy from her expression. It wasn't lost on Clark, but it made him lose his words. 

In true Chloe fashion, she backpedaled to hide her real feelings. "I'm just messing with you Clark - consider the verbal retraction printed. You don't have to answer that." She gave him what she hoped was a lighthearted and reassuring smile, but too many years of offering the same smile had made it a very thin disguise. 

Clark felt that he at least owed her some explanation in regard to Marin. "No, it's okay, I guess it's not really that hard to explain. I was just visiting a friend in Metropolis a couple of weeks ago, and Marin's a neighbor. She hung around for a while and we talked. That's about it." 

"You like her?" Chloe couldn't help asking. 

Clark half-smiled and his cheeks colored slightly. "No…" 

"Does she like you?" 

Clark had been trying not to think about that, although he knew the answer. "I don't think so. I don't know, we didn't really get that personal." 

"I bet she likes you," Chloe teased. "Probably has a notebook filled with 'Mrs. Kent' and lots of little hearts drawn around it! And baby names!" 

"Shut up!" Clark pushed her playfully. "It's not like that, and besides she's older than me." 

"Wow Clark, I never figured you to be the torrid May-December type." It was so much easier for Chloe to play the teasing little sister than it was to actually face her feelings for Clark. 

"I am _definitely_ not - and she wasn't that much older." Clark was looking sheepish now. 

"So what type do you go for then?" 

"I don't know." 

"The beauty pageant winner type?" 

"Ack, no!" 

"The science geek type?" 

"Um… uh uh." 

"The Britney Spears type?" 

"Uh… well maybe." 

"Ew, shut up!" Chloe swatted his shoulder with a nearby notebook. "Tell the truth." 

Clark grabbed the notebook. "Which is it, shut up or tell the truth?" 

Chloe pretended to be deep in thought. "The truth," she ordered with a devious grin. 

"Hmm… maybe I go for the investigative journalist type." Clark raised an eyebrow and smiled, almost patronizingly. 

"Right!" Chloe laughed out loud. "Wait… what?" 

Clark had just opened his mouth to reply when a bone-chilling scream sliced through the cool night air. 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Mom!" Clark cried out in recognition and bolted from the loft with Chloe in pursuit, tearing toward the Kent house. The single, razor sharp scream continued to throb in Clark's ears, and it terrified him - not only because of the almost tangible fear in the scream itself, but because nothing followed it. There was only silence, thick and ominous, and Clark felt like he was treading water as he fought through the deafening quiet to get to his house. 

Ten yards from the porch, Clark was suddenly gripped with crippling weakness and doubled over, dropping to the ground as if he'd been instantly drained. 

"Clark!" Chloe exclaimed, catching up to him just as his head fell back against the ground. "Clark, what happened?" 

Clark could hardly move, but even so he tried in vain to inch himself backward. Chloe's voice sounded distant and hollow, but her concern rang true and he managed to feebly clutch her hand. "You have to… help… away… from house," he drawled laboriously, straining for breath between words. 

Chloe nodded and hooked her arms under his, trying with all her strength to tug him away from the house. "I'm trying Clark - you're gonna have to help me here, I'm half your size." 

Drawing on the last of his strength, Clark grunted and pushed himself up enough that so he could fall backward and let Chloe and his momentum carry him through. At a safe distance from the house, Clark sat heaving and gulping air. 

"Clark, what was that?" Chloe whispered. The sound of men's voices reached Clark's ears before he could reply. Chloe observed him closely; he appeared to be intensely scrutinizing the house, and when overwhelming shock registered on his face he turned the same intense focus on the barn. 

"Now they're in the barn too," he whispered, horrified when he thought of how narrowly they'd missed them. 

"Who's in the barn?" Chloe questioned, very worried about Clark. 

"Not here," Clark replied and finally turned back to her. "We have to get out of here." Clark grabbed her by the arm and led her into the cornfield. "I don't think they saw us, but they'll be combing the fields before long." 

Chloe, despite her concern, was getting anxious and impatient. "Clark, what are you talking about? What is going on?" 

Clark was peering through the corn stalks at the house, then the barn, then back at the house. Chloe saw nothing out of the ordinary, and had it not been for the scream she'd heard moments earlier she'd have assumed that Clark had completely lost his grip on reality. "Shh, whisper… we should go deeper into the field. I need your phone." 

Chloe handed it over somewhat grudgingly. "Are you going to tell me what this is all about at some point, or am I supposed to just blindly follow orders?" 

"Chloe," Clark said sternly in an almost parental manner. "It's really important that you just listen to me for a minute, okay? I don't know what's going on, but I'm trying to find out, and I just need you to be quiet and stay with me for now. I need to make a call." Clark's words were meant to calm her, but the look in his eyes was so tortured that Chloe began to understand that the danger was very real. 

Clark dialed the phone and concentrated on the ringing while he tried in vain to convince himself that he hadn't really seen what he thought he saw through the walls of his home. 

"Hello?" A woman's voice answered. 

"Dr. Crosby?" Clark looked perplexed. "I thought I called Dr. Swann's office." 

"Clark?" she guessed, relief apparent in her voice. "It's Clark," she relayed to someone else in the room. "His number rolls over to me directly after hours. Listen Clark - " 

"Dr. Crosby, I have a big problem." Clark was pacing through the stalks now, his eyes never leaving the house. 

"I know. How do you know? Did Marin tell you?" 

"Marin? What? I don't know what you mean - look, my parents - they're being held hostage, or something - I don't know. There are men all over the house - they were in the barn too, but they left. But the house is full of Kryptonite - it's everywhere, in every room. Who could do that? Who knows how I react to it? The men are even wearing it on some kind of security badge." 

Stunned, Dr. Crosby took considerable time to reply. In the silence, while Clark visually deconstructed the house, Chloe stood in her own private whirlwind where questions whipped around her like debris. Not a single thing that Clark had just said made any sense to her, and there was no way he could know any of that. 

At last, Dr. Crosby spoke. "This is serious, Clark." 

If Clark dared to scream right then, he would have. "Of course it's serious! My parents are tied up in the kitchen! And Lois - damn it, I have no idea where she is." 

"It sounds like whoever is in your house is going to great lengths to keep you out." 

"But why?" Clark was frantic, still watching his parents and the men surrounding them, traipsing through the Kent house like it was a military compound. 

"I wish I could answer that, Clark. As it happens I have more bad news, and it's most likely connected - although I'm not sure yet exactly how." 

Clark tried to keep from crushing the phone as he braced himself. He swallowed dryly. "What happened?" 

"There's no easy way to tell you this, Clark. Dr. Ripley's disappeared." 

Clark had expected something more dire, until he considered exactly what Dr. Ripley's unknown whereabouts might mean. "What do you mean, 'he disappeared?' When?" 

"A few hours ago, give or take. But he didn't exactly leave empty-handed." 

Clark closed his eyes and sank to his knees, momentarily giving up his watch over the house. "What did he take?" 

"At least two full sets of all your fluid and tissue bios, and we just checked the log-in reports for the network. Within the last two weeks he's accessed and downloaded every file we have on you." 

Clark exhaled until he felt completely empty, and held on to that emptiness for a moment before he could bring himself to draw another breath. "So he knows everything, he has proof." 

"Clark, I'm so sorry about this, we never suspected he would do - " 

"Never mind, Dr. Crosby," Clark interrupted. "It's not your fault." 

"I am sorry." 

"Is there anything else I need to know?" 

Dr. Crosby hesitated long enough to look sideways at Marin, who had been listening to the call. Marin shook her head with a pleading expression. "Not now, we'll let you know if we find out anything else. I wish I could tell you where he went." 

Clark stood and looked at the house again. "I already know where he went." 

"Where?" 

"He went to Lionel Luthor." 

"How do you know?" 

Clark couldn't answer. He hadn't been listening to the sounds around him, and a sudden rustling of the corn stalks made his blood run cold. He hung up the phone. "Chloe," he whispered, reaching for her hand. He tried to scan through the field to find whom, if anyone, may be approaching, but found himself overwhelmed and unable to focus. Putting a protective arm around Chloe, who shrank against him in confusion, he waited. 

"Clark? Chloe?" Lois' voice called through the darkness. Chloe laughed in relief but Clark quickly turned to silence her. 

"Chloe, listen to me," he implored in hushed tones as he brought his lips to her ear. "You can't tell Lois anything you heard. I'll explain, I promise, but you can't tell her anything. We have to get her to leave, it isn't safe here. Then we'll go and I'll tell you everything, but first promise not to tell Lois." His eyes were fiercely insistent. "Promise me, Chloe." 

Despite Clark's intensity, Chloe found a small part of her consciousness wondering if Clark had intentionally pulled her into that crushing hug when he bent to whisper to her. With his arms gripping her so tightly, almost desperately, she might have agreed to anything he'd demand of her. "I promise." 

Lois happened upon them finally, finding them in what looked to her to be a compromising position. "Okay, children of the corn, I don't care what I'm interrupting, if anything. It took me forever to find you. What are you doing out here? Did you guys hear that scream?" 

Clark still had a steel gaze fixed on Chloe, but she managed to tear her eyes away from his and grin at Lois. "Yeah, uh - that was me." 

Lois looked doubtful. "That was you?" 

"Yeah… well, I got a little turned around in here, and Clark snuck up on me. Sorry if it scared you. You can blame Clark." Chloe wasn't surprised at how quickly the lie came to her, but she was a little mystified by how calmly she was able to spin it. 

"Oh, I'll happily blame Clark whenever the opportunity arises. Can we go now? I've had enough of good ol' green acres for one night." 

Chloe glanced from Clark to Lois, and back to Clark. "Actually, um… Clark and I were talking, and…" 

Lois held up her hands. "Say no more - really, spare me the details. I'm gone. I'll just get my boots and be on my way." 

"No!" Clark cried. "I mean, uh - I'll clean them for you and bring them over tomorrow, or something. You can use my mom's shoes for now." 

"You're going to clean my boots? And deliver them? Is that the cow-town version of kissing my feet?" 

Clark rolled his eyes impatiently and threw another glance toward the house. He knew he didn't have much time to get her away from the farm safely. "I wouldn't even think of kissing your feet - I know where they've been." 

"Oh fine, for that I'm gonna let you clean my boots, and I just may have to come back and run behind the barn so you can do it again. Whatever happened to small-town friendliness?" 

"Too many loud-mouth city slickers killed it." 

"Ugh! The less time I have to spend around you, Kent, the better." She started to stalk away. "I'll see you later, Chloe. I'm assuming boy wonder will give you a ride? You know, if he's evolved opposable thumbs by the time you have to go." 

Chloe chuckled in spite of the true gravity of the situation. "Yeah." Lois continued to walk away, and then Chloe jumped. "Oh! I forgot to give her the keys." 

Clark glanced from Chloe's car to the house. There was an uncomfortable lack of distance between the two. He looked toward the barn and thought for a moment. "Look, I can't get close to the house. I don't want either of you near it, but if I get too close I'd be no help to you at all. Run and give her the keys as fast as you can, but don't stand around talking. She has to leave right away. Nobody's watching the car right now, but I heard them say there will be more people here soon to check the fields. They're looking for me. I'll wait in the barn, okay? There's nobody there right now - I just need to stay out of sight. I'll be watching to make sure you're safe, but hurry - just give her the keys and get back to the barn." 

Chloe couldn't possibly have been more confused, but she rushed to do just as Clark ordered. She sensed an urgency that left no room for her not to comply. "Bye Lois!" she said as brightly as she could, tossing the keys to her cousin before wheeling around and running back to the barn. In the darkness within, she ran straight into Clark's chest, where he held her fast while silently watching the taillights of Chloe's car disappear down the road. Satisfied that Lois was safe for now, Clark turned his attention back to Chloe. "I know I owe you an explanation." 

Chloe nodded and smiled. "Nah, this is how I always spend my evenings." She reconsidered her words. "Actually, this kind of is how I spend my evenings." She caught her breath somewhere between heartbeats when Clark took both her hands. 

"I really do owe you the truth." 

_The real truth? After all this time?_ "Oh… okay. Well, yeah, the truth would be - " She was abruptly cut off when Clark covered her mouth with his hand. 

"We're too late," he mouthed almost silently. "They're here." 

"Who's here?" But then she heard them too - the rumble of approaching motors - they seemed to be coming from everywhere. 

Clark turned in a slow circle, panning through the walls. Vehicles were indeed approaching from every direction - even from the fields. They were cut off entirely. "They know we're in here. They have us surrounded, there's no way out." 

"Who? Clark, what is going on? Who's looking for you? What is all this about your parents and - " 

"Chloe, I need you to trust me right now. More than anything, all you have to do is trust me." 

Engines were roaring all around them, the sounds of men exiting trucks and barking orders. Shafts of blue-white light pierced the blackness around them, but Chloe was contained in Clark's eyes, and felt nothing but safety. "I trust you." 

Clark nodded wordlessly and closed his eyes. His lips moved subconsciously and he concentrated inward, silently pleading for his brain to comply with his heart. It began to return to him… lightness, weightlessness… he could feel it again. 

Then it was gone. 

"No!" Clark screamed, inflamed in righteous rage. 

"What is it?" 

Clark enveloped Chloe into himself, covering her head with his hand and again retreated into his mind, where he knew the last of himself was hiding. He strained and broke into a cold sweat, he felt like gears too tightly wound and about to snap, but still he pushed. _Kal-El_… 

Chloe looked up when she felt a tremor rush through Clark's body. His eyes flew open and he looked down at her, fierce with determined fire. "Hold on," he directed darkly, as he strengthened his hold around her and bent low at the knees. 

Chloe hadn't even registered the feeling of being suspended above the ground before she realized they'd crashed through the roof. 


	16. Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Marin left her door open. There was no purpose now in keeping up any pretense of privacy, not when even the most sacred pieces of herself and her life had been so deeply violated. Her heart had been poured out, her body stolen, and her broken spirit was left to mourn for the shell that remained. Her retreat from the world was meant to restore her, to guard her while she rebuilt herself. But her haven became her prison, where she was locked in an anguish so brutal and crushing that she almost couldn't feel it. She became numb, despondent, her soul writhing and seething against what had taken root inside her. She was suffocated by the residue of memories that almost happened, those she couldn't grasp, and of the sound of hesitant knocking on doors in the early morning. The weight of consequences that should not have been hers filled the space around her, pressing against the walls and the delicate membrane of her sanity. 

So the door stood open. 

Arms clutched around her knees, Marin was huddled in the corner between the wall and her desk, out of sight from the door except for the toes of her shoes. She wasn't trying to hide, she merely feared the open spaces, heavy as they were - she needed the solid reassurance of a wall at her back to keep herself from imagining that the empty air behind her was twisting into a malicious specter, sent to deal her yet another merciless blow. 

Lost as she was in her misery, she only vaguely recognized that an anxious voice was calling down the hall, something like a name. As the voice and the accompanying pounding of footsteps drew closer, she distantly realized the name was hers. It didn't alarm her that the voice and the feet that carried it clamored into the room without hesitation, as she'd come to expect lately that things would happen to her with or without her consent. 

"Marin!" Dr. Prescott cried, her tone a fusion of concern and anxiety. "Marin, we found something - you won't believe - you'd better come to the hub!" 

Marin gazed up through the fog that clouded her senses. "Andrea?" 

Dr. Prescott knelt and tugged at Marin's hand. "Come on, Marin, come to the hub," she implored tenderly. "It might be good news." 

The uncertainty in Dr. Prescott's voice forced Marin's analytical nature to take back control from her emotions. "Might be good news? You don't know what it is yet?" 

Dr. Prescott averted her eyes and bit her lip before responding. "Well, I do, but - you just have to come and see for yourself. In one way it's good, in that it's not… well… Dr. Crosby's waiting." 

With a great effort Marin hoisted herself off of the floor and away from the safety of the wall, but trailed closely behind Dr. Prescott as she followed her to the hub. She idly peered through open doors as they passed through the halls, noting in bewilderment the state of mayhem in which Drs. Crosby and Prescott had left the labs in their search for evidence of Dr. Ripley's deviance. 

"Is she coming, Andrea?" Dr. Crosby called when she heard them approaching. 

"She's right behind me," Dr Prescott answered and turned to Marin with a sympathetic smile. 

Dr. Crosby crossed over to Marin and braced her shoulders with a gently supportive arm. "How are you feeling?" 

Marin shrugged. "How should I feel?" she countered tearfully. 

Dr. Crosby glanced at Dr. Prescott, and neither knew what to say. Finally, after a decidedly uncomfortable interlude, Dr. Crosby decided to move on. "When I called Dr. Swann to alert him of the situation, he told me something that even I didn't know - the entire substructure of the building, with the exception of the bunkers, is equipped with hidden surveillance - far beyond the standard visual security system that we all knew about. I shouldn't have been surprised, given Dr. Swann's eccentricities - but anyway, the system includes the hub, the labs, the elevators, the hallways - and the exam rooms." 

Marin raised an eyebrow. "You said 'exam rooms' like it means something." 

"Well, it does. After reviewing some of the footage I came across something that may or may not ease your mind - but it definitely gives us a whole new problem." 

Marin started to become agitated. "Can we stop being cryptic, please? I want to see the video." 

Dr. Prescott looked ill at ease. "Maybe we should just tell her." 

Dr. Crosby shook her head. "No, she has the right to see this. She needs to know." She turned to Marin. "Do you want us to leave?" 

Marin stared at the blank monitor, privately assessing her strength. She wasn't sure she had any left. "Do you mind staying?" 

"No, we can stay," Dr. Prescott lulled, taking up her post next to Marin, opposite Dr. Crosby. 

Flanked by her colleagues, Marin feebly reached out to press "play." When the image of Dr. Ripley pressing her against the wall and leering wickedly appeared on the screen, Marin released a choked sob and collapsed to her knees, one hand over her mouth and the other clutching her stomach. She watched the tape in horror through burning tears, as everything in her screamed in denial of its truth. 

_I need your baby. Yours and Clark's._

. . .

Clark stumbled only slightly as he landed, but after a few misplaced steps in a flattened field of harvested corn, he regained his footing and stopped to observe his surroundings. He'd turned three full circles, scanning everything he could see and listening for the slightest hint of danger, before he looked down to see Chloe - still gathered like a child in his arms - shivering and staring at him in unveiled awe. 

"Chloe!" he exclaimed suddenly, as if he'd forgotten he'd been holding her. He gingerly set her on the ground. "You're freezing," he said apologetically, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. "I need to find you someplace warm." 

Chloe remained speechless and immobile, finding herself filled with new questions while so many of her old queries were suddenly answered, in some vague manner. Her eyes were wide, as if seeing Clark for the first time - seeing things that she now realized were always there, but she'd been blind to them. 

Clark was starting to panic. "Chloe! Are you okay? Chloe, say something! Nod if you can hear me, or - something! Chloe?" He pulled her close again. _She's so cold._

The air around Chloe was so thick with her epiphany that Clark's voice couldn't fully penetrate it. She could only watch him while his eyes darted over her, checking for injuries, begging her for any sign that she could understand him - but it was understanding that bound her tongue. While she still didn't really have answers to all of her years of curiosities about Clark, she had one pure, undeniable experience to decode - at least for herself - the tangled web of mystery that had always been Clark Kent. 

"Chloe, please. You have to say something," Clark whispered against her ear. "I don't know what to do. I'm so, so sorry about all the lies I told you, I promise I'll never lie to you again if you just say something! Please, Chloe…" The tears that had been collected in the corners of his eyes spilled down over his ruddy cheeks, and in the cold autumn air his breath mingled with Chloe's in a sweet, white mist. He slumped over her as he cradled her in his lap, and for the first time he could remember in years, allowed himself to really cry - for Chloe, for his parents, for all the turmoil he felt responsible for since before he even knew what made him different. "I'm lost, Chloe," he breathed against her forehead. "Being me has cost the people I love everything, and it's cost me the people I love. Please, _please_ don't be one of those people." 

To Chloe, everything still looked and sounded as if it were underwater, but some determined thread of Clark's plea wove its way through the gentle shroud that covered her, and she raised a finger to touch his moonlit cheek. "Clark?" 

Relief flooded Clark like a tidal wave and he tightened his embrace. "Oh, thank God, Chloe!" he cried. "I thought I'd lost you." 

Chloe smiled brilliantly as she let her head fall back, the harvest moon caressing her face with ethereal fingers of light. "I'm here." 

Clark cupped her face in one hand. "Yes you are," he smiled, not even trying to pretend he hadn't cried. Renewed with a sense of purpose now that he knew Chloe was unharmed, he stood and lifted Chloe with him. "We need to find someplace warm." 

"I think I can walk," Chloe said, her lucidity returning. 

"Are you sure?" 

"I think so," Chloe nodded, then looked around. "Something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." 

Clark laughed, perhaps harder than he would have normally, but to hear her voice with her usual wit was immensely reassuring - even with all the questions that must be swimming through her mind, she could make light of the situation. "Ah, no - we're - I think we're in Minnesota?" 

"Minnesota!" Chloe chuckled. "We're in a different state, but we still manage to end up in a corn field. Why Minnesota?" 

Clark shrugged, finally setting Chloe down so she could stand. "I was just trying to get away - I didn't really care where - and I didn't really have control over the, uh… flying… thing." Clark ducked his head sheepishly, thinking how ludicrous it must sound. 

Chloe drew in her breath sharply as they began walking out of the field, arms intertwined. "Flying… wow." She knew they'd flown, she could feel the memory of whipping through the atmosphere with nothing around her but Clark's arms and the night sky - but saying it out loud made it seem incomprehensible. 

"Yeah," Clark answered absently as he looked up at the sky. Chloe was notably silent as he surveyed the cosmos, so he looked down again into her quizzical eyes. "You want answers?" 

"At some point," she affirmed with a sweet smile. "I can be patient for a little while." 

"Patient? You? The air must have been really thin up there," Clark teased. 

"Are you seriously teasing me? I just had an out-of-body experience, except my body was still with me. Don't be so inhuman." Chloe had expected at least a smile in return for her jest, and was surprised when Clark's jaw set in a grim line. "What is it? Did I say something?" 

Clark knew it was time to tell her - there was no way to deny his identity to her now, and he didn't want to anymore. But this wasn't like telling Pete. In some ways it was easier, because he was certain that Chloe wouldn't respond by pushing him away as Pete had, but in another way - some disarming way that he couldn't define - it terrified him. Clark closed his eyes and held Chloe by the shoulders, looking down at her shining face, open and accepting. "Inhuman." 

"Inhuman…" Chloe repeated, prompting Clark to continue. 

"That's what I am." 


	17. Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Incompetence!" Lionel Luthor raged, rattling the bars that held him with the sheer volume of his booming voice. He paced like the roaring king of the big cats that he was, hungrily eyeing his prey. "You were to seize _all_ of them in one fell swoop, and you neglected to confirm that the target commodity was even on the table. Now I have two worthless assets that were only of use to me if I also had the third - the loss of which I can credit to your utter and _complete_ failure to follow a simple directive!" He spoke of the Kent raid as little more than a corporate negotiation. Lionel had considerable faith that his money had purchased the cooperation of most of those who stood guard over him, but he didn't see any reason to give them ammunition to hand to someone who may come at them with a better offer. 

"But Mr. Luthor - " began Philip Sawyer, the berated underling who'd organized the attempted Kent family siege. 

"It's indefensible!" Lionel shouted. He took several deep breaths, trying to reacquire his usual cold, impassive demeanor. "You've thrust me into the center ring of a tactical nightmare with your boorish, indelicate approach," he accused calculatingly. "It appears the old adage proves true yet again: if I want something done right, I must do it myself." 

"Mr. Luthor," Sawyer whispered, beckoning Lionel to approach the bars. When only a few inches and strips of metal stood between them, Sawyer drew a tiny, capped syringe from his pocket. "Exactly as you requested, compliments of Dr. Ripley. He didn't even have to develop it, he already had it." 

A delighted sneer spread over Lionel's face like an oil spill. "Well, this is good news. It does not excuse the debacle you've made out of the acquisition, though. However, if you succeed with this next venture, I may give you an opportunity to redeem yourself." 

Sawyer nodded emphatically. "I will succeed sir - I have no doubt." 

"Doubting you is my job, but don't take it personally. Just do as I ask." Lionel looked down at the syringe in his employee's hand. "How long will it take?" he whispered hoarsely. 

"Fifteen minutes, give or take. Make it look good." 

Lionel raised his eyebrow. "Are you giving me orders?" 

"Uh.. no sir," Sawyer answered. 

"See that it stays that way," Lionel directed, rolling up his left sleeve and pressing the underside of his arm against the bars. "Do it." 

Sawyer plunged the tiny needle into the soft flesh, injecting the contents of the syringe and pocketing it again before Lionel even felt it. 

Lionel nodded affirmatively, then his face twisted and he screamed. "Get out of my sight, before I decide to have all of your assets frozen!!" 

Sawyer's eyes widened in terror, although he knew what was coming. "Sir, I'm sorry, I - " 

"Apologies yield no profit! You've proven yourself to be an expensive liability, Sawyer! Get out!" Lionel's blood was racing from the thrill of his performance. He'd always thought of his occupation as being part acting. "You have one opportunity to fix this problem, and if you fail again, it will be the last failure you experience under my employment!" The veins in his forehead were pulsing, and Lionel felt a sick satisfaction when his left arm began to ache dully. 

"Yes, sir!" Sawyer cried and lumbered backwards to the door. 

Once Sawyer was gone, Lionel continued his tirade, stomping from wall to wall and muttering expletives over the inability of his staff to follow simple instructions. He clutched his left arm as the dull ache began to intensify into a searing pain that creeped into his chest. Crying out in a guttural yell, he crumpled to the floor with a hand over his heart and a wicked expression on his face. 

. . .

They'd been walking for about twenty minutes, Clark spilling as much of his story as he could while keeping up with Chloe's questions, when he spotted a small structure in a somewhat concealed back yard. He eyed it carefully. "It's a guest house, or a shed - or something. Looks like they use it for storage, but at least it'll get you out of the cold air for a while." 

"It's fine," Chloe agreed, shivering beneath both her jacket and Clark's as he lifted her over a flimsy wire fence, then easily hopped over it himself. "You're not cold?" 

"Nah, doesn't bother me," Clark shrugged as he led Chloe across the manicured garden to the little building in the corner of the lot. 

"Of course it doesn't," Chloe realized as they stepped over a path of deliberately uneven flagstones leading to a charming little porch. "It looks like a life-size doll house." 

Clark nodded. "Yeah - but there's nobody here, I checked." 

"Right, x-ray vision," Chloe assumed. 

"What? You don't believe me?" 

Chloe rolled her eyes and smiled. "Of course I believe you, Clark - you just massively defied gravity, it's not so much of a stretch to believe you can see through walls. It's just… a lot to take in after I've only known about all this for ten minutes. Let me get used to it." 

"You're right - I'm sorry." Clark turned to the Dutch door on the little house. "It's locked," he informed, eyeing the padlock only momentarily before he crushed it. 

Chloe giggled. "And all this time I thought you just had a magic touch with doors." 

"Well… I do," Clark smiled. "After you," he said, pulling the door open and gesturing to Chloe to step inside. Clark followed, making Chloe laugh when he had to stoop due to the low ceiling. 

"Finally, an advantage to being short!" She examined the tiny room. Directly across from the door, a narrow staircase led up to an attic-like loft, and to the right stood a toy wooden stove and a sink. "It's a playhouse," Chloe commented, intrigued by the whimsy. 

"That explains the ridiculously low ceiling," Clark replied. "There're some camping mats over here." He moved a rusty bicycle and a broken gas grill out of the way and layered the mats on the floor. "Maybe there are some blankets upstairs - make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back." 

"Clark, the ceiling up there is probably no more than four feet at the peak, not to mention the stairs are barely two feet wide. You wait, I'll go. This looks like a job for a small fry." 

"Mmm… okay." 

Chloe started up the tiny staircase. "I bet this place was really cute once. Before it became the 'island of misfit toys'… and everything else." She reached the top of the stairs and peered around the railing at the loft. "Wow - I don't know if there are any blankets up here. Looks like they have everything else though." 

"There are blankets, I can see them," Clark called. He was lying on the floor below, enjoying the look of disgust on Chloe's face when she put her hand in something a squirrel left behind. 

"Are you watching me through the ceiling?" 

"Yep." 

"We're going to have to lay down some ground rules about these powers, Clark. But at least you're getting a nice look up my nose." 

"Yeah, you have some serious congestion." 

Chloe stuck her tongue out at the dusty floor. "I know you saw that, too. Now where are those blankets? Am I getting warm?" 

"Nope, ice cold." 

Chloe crawled a little farther into the loft. "Warmer?" 

"Yeah, a little. Keep going." 

"In a sec," Chloe answered as she moved aside stacks of comic books. "Some caped crusader is in my way." She moved toward the far left corner. "Hot yet?" 

"Colder." 

"What happened to your hero complex, Clark? Just tell me where they are!" 

Clark chuckled and grinned. "They're in a trunk against the middle of the wall on your right. There's no lock." 

"Wow, a trunk of unlocked blankets in a stinky playhouse loft. These people are asking for trouble!" Chloe located the trunk and pushed it open. "Whoa, what died in here?" she cried, reeling from the smell. "Actually, I think something did die in here." 

"There's nothing in there now except blankets," Clark assured her. "Take them anyway, there's nothing else we can use." 

Chloe gathered the blankets and headed back down the stairs. "This one is exceptionally rancid," she said, tossing an old brown afghan to Clark, "so you can have it all to yourself." 

"Very generous," Clark quipped, but once Chloe was settled on the floor next to him his mood shifted back to concern. "Lets get you warmed up," he said, wrapping all of the blankets around her one by one. "Better?" 

"Snug as a suffocated bug," Chloe affirmed. 

"Good," Clark said, then he laughed. "Man, these really do smell." 

"I know! It's worse than fertilizer and teenage boy combined! And coming from Smallville, I know what I'm talking about." 

"Yeah…" Clark's response held none of Chloe's intended amusement. "I have to get back there." He settled against the wall under a shuttered window and closed his eyes. 

"That shouldn't be hard, right? Can't you just fly back?" 

Clark shook his head. "I don't know, I've never done it before tonight." 

Chloe's surprise was evident. "Never? How did you do it then? How did you know you could?" 

Clark rubbed his neck. "Man, there is so much to tell you - it'll take a long time. It's not just the things I can do or where I'm from, it's - well, okay, the really short version is that my biological father, Jor-El, had control over me over the summer, and then he sent me back, but I wasn't me, I was Kal-El, who's sort of my alter-ego, except that he's… not, he's me, but not all of me - anyway, he could fly, but then my mom got this black Kryptonite from Dr. Crosby, which brought me back, and I couldn't fly anymore, but when I went to Dr. Swann's lab for some tests a few weeks ago, they discovered that I might be able to sort of channel Kal-El's power, so… that's what I did. When I flew." 

Chloe was stunned into silence, a rarity that had already occurred twice that night. 

"Sorry, that's a lot of weirdness in one breath," Clark apologized. "You took the news about me being from another planet pretty well though, so I thought - " 

Chloe put a hand on his arm. "No, no, it's fine, I want to know all this stuff - but wow - that's enough to give me mental indigestion for a while." 

The two sat in silence, Chloe formulating questions about Clark's past, and Clark posing queries about the futures of himself and those he loved. 

"I don't know if I can do it again," Clark mused aloud, breaking the silence. "I could run back, it'll only take a little longer. I can't do either right now, though." 

"Why not?" 

"I'm sort of solar-powered. I can store the sun's energy to use at night, but the flying took a lot out of me. I'm running on low-watt auxiliary until sunrise." 

Chloe looked at her watch, surprised to find it broken. "Guess this watch wasn't designed for higher altitudes - " She was interrupted by the squeal of her phone. "But my cell phone still works!" She rearranged her blankets and pulled it from her pocket. "Hello?" 

"Do you know what time it is?" Lois' voice sounded accusatory. 

"Uh… no? I was just wondering actually. Hi to you too, Lois." Chloe glanced at Clark nervously. 

"It's four in the morning, your dad is freaking out! He called you a million times but he kept getting 'out of area' messages. Where are you?" 

"I'm… not far," Chloe lied. "I'm with Clark." She slapped her hand over her forehead. "But you don't have to tell my dad that - " 

Lois was frustrated, partially because Chloe had been out all night, and partially because it was Clark she'd been out with. _But why does it matter_? "Whatever, play house if you want to, just think up a decent excuse to give your dad before taking off all night. I never got any sleep - he went Pacino on me with the interrogations." 

Chloe winced. "I'm sorry Lois, I should have called, we just lost track of time." 

"Whatever, I'll be there to pick you up in a minute." 

Chloe's face went white as milk and she clutched Clark's shoulder. "No, no, don't pick me up, I'm not at Clark's!" 

Seeing Chloe panic, Clark tuned his hearing in to the conversation. 

"Fine, I'll pick you up wherever you are, I'm just going to grab my boots first since I'm practically there. I have to go back to Metropolis this morning, and I don't have time to wait for your boyfriend to finish being chivalrous." 

"Lois, no! Don't go to the Kents', we're - we're at the Talon! We pulled an all-nighter catching up with Lana, and… and your boots are here, Clark brought them - we were going to drop them off - " 

"What are you talking about? I'm at the Kent's now, I can see the boots - what the hell happened here? Somebody have a little trouble making crop circles? " 

"Lois!" Chloe shrieked. "You have to leave! Now!" 

"What? Hold on, I have another call - probably your dad. I'll call you back when I find out how dead you are." 

Clark grabbed the phone from Chloe. "Lois!" he cried, but she'd already hung up. 

Chloe had thrown off the blankets and ran for the door. "What are we gonna do?" she wailed. "We're not even in Kansas!" 

The phone screamed again in Clark's hand. "Lois, listen, you have to - " 

"This isn't Lois," a female voice said before he could finish. 

Clark felt like his lungs had imploded. "Who is this?" 

The voice was tentative and pained. "This is Marin - I'm sorry, I know this is Chloe's phone and you're busy, but I had to talk to you for a minute - " 

"Marin!" Clark huffed. "Marin, I'm sorry, this is really not a good time!" 

"I know, I wouldn't have called if it wasn't important." 

Clark was too distracted to noticed how thick with tears her words were. "Is it about my parents? Or Lois?" 

"Lois? No, it's - " 

"Then it'll have to wait, I have to concentrate on them." 

Marin inadvertently let the cry in her throat escape into the phone. "No, of course, I understand, I shouldn't have called now, I - I'll talk to you later." The phone beeped when she hung up. 

Clark couldn't even consider why Marin had called him now, and took no meaning from it. "Kansas and Minnesota are both in Central time, right?" 

Chloe nodded. "I think so - if it's four a.m. there, it's four a.m. here." 

Clark opened the shutters and looked up at the ebony sky, his body riddled with anxious tension. He felt helpless. "If October here is anything like October there, we have almost three hours until sunrise." 


	18. Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Marin let the phone slip from her hand to the floor and leaned her head back against her mattress. Dr. Crosby had left telling Clark about the conception up to her, and she'd decided that Clark would likely be more upset if she waited too long to tell him. Hoping to get it over with cleanly, she'd returned the call to Chloe's phone. Clearly a mistake.

She might have found the situation laughable - something akin to a supermarket tabloid's headline. She may have even studied it herself - if it was happening to anyone else. But it had never happened to anyone else - only her. She was infinitely relieved to know that she wasn't impregnated by Dr. Ripley - it was hard to imagine something more vile, but it was hardly comforting to know that something literally alien was growing inside her - something that had, in essence, been stolen from Clark.

The depth of the grievous injustice that had been dealt to both of them weighed heavily on Marin. She, Drs. Swann, Crosby, Prescott, and even Ripley knew that - technically - Clark Kent was a father, and he remained unaware. An unwitting pawn, little more than a child himself, who had trusted them with the gravest of secrets, and they had betrayed him. Their faith in their science and the integrity of their efforts had failed him - he was revealed by their ineptitude. It didn't matter that only one of them had undermined him deliberately - they had promised him protection, and in the end their promise bore no strength.

In the absence of her usual coherence and with only the determined thought that Clark needed to know the truth to drive her, Marin found herself on the morning's first bus to Smallville.

. . .

Lionel was faintly aware of thunderous footsteps, and thought it horribly tactless of people to make such a racket when he was trying to sleep. Some hyperactive nugget of a thought played in the back of his mind and whispered that it knew what the commotion was, but it was best to lie still for now and wait. Finding no reason not to, he followed the advice and remained at rest.

Around him, guards ran alongside his gurney as he was wheeled down the hall.

"Get him to the infirmary," the warden ordered.

"Not good enough," the medic on duty protested. "We can probably stabilize him there, but we'll have to airlift him to a hospital. He's in full arrest, we don't have the capacity to treat him here." The medic was new, just started that week, endowed with a suspiciously thick envelope given to him as a hiring bonus by a man he knew simply as Sawyer.

"Fine, call for Med-Evac - I'm not going to have a dead billionaire on my hands!"

The call was made and Lionel was stabilized, then rushed to the roof of the penitentiary to await the arrival of the helicopter. The roar of its blades was pulsing in their ears before long, and the moment it landed two men leapt from its open door.

The younger of the two men ran to the medic. "I'm Dr. Ripley, what do we have?"

"Stress-causative cardiac arrest," the medic shouted over the sound of the whirring blades. "Been down about ten minutes - stabilized, but critical."

"Got it from here, thanks!" Dr. Ripley and the other man - whom the medic recognized as Sawyer - set about strapping the gurney into the belly of the bird.

The medic knew about the drug Lionel had been given, and that it was meant to simulate a heart attack - it did a decent job of it, and he'd done his job as well. He watched the chopper lift off again, knowing he'd been played in Lionel Luthor's game, but he had fifty thousand reasons not to care.

. . .

Inside the helicopter, Philip Sawyer waited anxiously while Dr. Ripley (who's vehement insistence of his value to Lionel had been ignored until he'd concocted this jailbreak scheme) tended to the unconscious man. Opening a small metal case, he withdrew a needle and a vial and injected yet another drug into Lionel's arm.

For several moments nothing happened, then Lionel's eyes suddenly burst open and he heaved and tried to sit up, but found that his chest felt like he was being wrung in a cider press.

Dr. Ripley hovered over Lionel and smiled. "Welcome back, Mr. Luthor. Don't worry, the pain is temporary."

"It had better be," Lionel wheezed, clutching his arm over his chest.

"It's completely safe as long as you administer the antidote within forty minutes, and we're well within the range," Dr. Ripley assured.

"You have quite an array of pharmaceuticals at your disposal," Lionel commented, finally pulling himself upright.

Dr. Ripley grinned. "I told you I'd be of use to you."

. . .

Clark fought to suppress his angst as he watched the discouragingly dark early morning sky. It had been ten minutes since Lois had called, and he knew she had most likely joined the party tied up in the Kent kitchen. It was hard for him to pace in the tiny room, being six inches taller than the ceiling, so he stood at the window and willed the sky to lighten. He'd never been patient with futility.

"There has to be something we can do," Chloe insisted, combing through her mind to find some beam of hope to bask in. "How can we just sit here and wait for daybreak? They have my cousin! And your parents - we have to do something!"

"I _know_, Chloe! But I can't do anything - I got us stuck out here, and I can't get us back until the sun comes up! Do you have any other ideas?" Clark didn't intend to yell at her, but his fear and frustration got the better of him.

Chloe seemed unphased by his anger, since she shared it - but she was also thinking more clearly. "Come on Clark, we can do this - what would you do if you didn't have any of these abilities in the first place?"

Clark guffed haughtily. "If I didn't have them, we wouldn't _be_ in this situation in the first place - you and I wouldn't be here, my parents and Lois wouldn't be under siege in my house - you don't know how many times I've _begged_ to find that everything I knew about myself was just a twisted nightmare, and I'd wake up in the morning and not see through walls, and go downstairs and burn my hand on the toaster or something - just stupid, normal stuff that wouldn't matter to Lionel Luthor at all! Or anybody else!"

Clark's tirade planted the seed of a solution in Chloe's mind. "Lex," she said eerily.

Clark stopped when she spoke. "What?"

"Lex," Chloe repeated. "Call Lex!"

Clark shook his head adamantly. "No - that's fighting fire with fire, but it won't be a Luthor who gets burned."

"What are you talking about? I know Lex has his issues, but he would help -"

"Oh, yeah, he'd help, and then he'd help himself to all he could find out about me. He's been investigating me since the day I pulled him out of his Porsche, Chloe! He says he stopped, but - I can't trust him. Not with this. He might have stopped for now, but there's no way I could convince him not to pry after this."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this - Clark, he's your friend and he's Lionel's son. Half your land was trampled in a raid last night - he's going to find out one way or another. What choice do you have? It's either Lex, or you wait for the next three hours and then go home - hopefully there will be something left." Chloe knew her argument was morbid, but she forced herself to make Clark feel the lives that were at stake. "It's going to take fighting fire with fire, this time. There's no other option."

Clark knew that Chloe was right - he couldn't balance the protection of his secret against the safety of his family. "Let me use your phone again." 


	19. Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lex Luthor sat in the front passenger seat of a fully outfitted special-ops van, watching as the pinpricks of light shining from the Kent farm grew into glowing beacons. His friendship with Clark was hard to label - they seemed to expect such monumental things of one another, things that most people could never conceive of requesting, and yet here they were again, each needing something from the other. Clark needed Lex's intervention, and Lex needed Clark's trust. 

He had momentarily hedged when Clark asked him to make a promise. That hesitation stemmed from his dilemma over whether the need for Clark to trust him again was greater than his quest to know more about his almost mythic friend. It appeared he may have turned over his new leaf a little prematurely. 

_"Lex, it's Clark - look, this is gonna sound crazy and I can't really give you any answers, 'cause the truth is I don't know, but I need you to help me and not ask questions." Clark's voice was ragged, like he was shouting over ambient noise that wasn't there. _

"Just stay calm, Clark," Lex responded evenly. "You know I'll do anything in my power to help, but I do need to know what's going on." 

"It's your father! At least I think so, he's the only one who - well, he's crazy, he had all these men storm onto our farm and they have my parents tied up in the house, and I think Lois is there too. Chloe and I managed to get away, but they have my parents - the whole house is under guard." 

It was one of those ludicrous moments, the kind that only a Luthor could find almost commonplace. "And you want me to drive out the rats?" 

"Ah, not you personally, no. Honestly Lex, I want you to stay away from there. But you have resources too, you can get them out, right?" 

"Organizing counter-militia operations isn't exactly what I do, Clark." 

Even Clark's breath was impatient. "I don't have time for this if you're not going to help, Lex! I thought you said I could trust you!" 

"I didn't say I wouldn't help, but it will take a little time to put something like this together." 

"How much time?" 

"Do you know how many men there are?" 

"Maybe a dozen, I don't know. There were more, but I don't think they stayed." 

Lex did some silent figuring. "I can be ready to move inside of an hour." 

Clark's relief was tangible. "Thanks, Lex." 

"Are you sure you can't think of a reason for my father to raid your property?" 

Clark swallowed and took just enough time to reply to give Lex the truth that his words didn't. "No idea." 

Something in Lex's mind leapt at the lie. A full-scale raid and potential hostage situation was brash, brutal - it was an end-game move, the kind of cutthroat last-straw tactic that Lionel Luthor would not have employed if he hadn't known with unwavering certainty that the rewards would be tremendous - that there was something of unimaginable value to be gained. Luthors lured and lulled their prey - they only lunged at it when it was proved worthy of everything they might lose in the chase. A play this bold could only mean that the elder Luthor finally had proof - irrefutable proof - that there was something about Clark Kent that made him worth risking everything. 

_"Lex, I need you to promise me you'll stay away - send the team without you." Clark fervently hoped that maybe if Lex didn't see for himself what had occurred, he'd be able to dissuade him from digging again. _

"If that's what you want, Clark." 

Lex dearly wished he could have been as true and honest a friend as he wanted to believe he was, but the truth was that a secret of such magnitude was too compelling to allow Lex to be kept away by something as gray as his conscience. As his hastily assembled team of fifteen armed men advanced on the Kent house with weapons raised, Lex Luthor stood in the barn, watching a cloud obscure the stars through the gaping hole in the roof. 

. . .

Lionel sponged the sweat from his brow with a roll of gauze as he slid off the gurney. He hadn't anticipated how painful even simulated cardiac arrest was, but the pain was of little consequence - a miniscule price to pray for his freedom. "Now, Dr. Ripley," he grunted as he settled into his seat. "We have some unfinished business to attend to." 

Dr. Ripley nodded in agreement. "Good, I was hoping we could make some arrangements. I have number of active trials in progress, studies initiated months ago, and - " 

"That's quite enough, Doctor." Lionel held up his hand to halt Dr. Ripley's words, then turned to Philip Sawyer. "The dental records are in order, correct?" 

"Replaced them an hour ago, yes sir," Sawyer informed. 

"Very good. Now, Dr. Ripley," he began again, returning his attention to the biogeneticist. "While I am intrigued by your tenacity, and certainly appreciative of the countless hours you've amassed in pursuit of a very worthy goal, I remain troubled by the rash decisions you've made. You must understand how unsettling that would be, to a man in my position. Sawyer, how much longer?" he called to the front of the aircraft, where Sawyer sat next to the pilot. 

_Dental records_? Dr. Ripley noted that, along with a frightening pallor, the pilot wore a visage of grim terror, and the eyes of the fifth man on board - a paramedic - darted anxiously from to face to face as words were exchanged. 

"Seven minutes, sir." 

"Then we haven't much time." He turned again to Dr. Ripley, smiling benevolently. "You see, Ethan - you don't mind if I call you Ethan, do you? Considering what you're going to do for me, I feel comfortable with the familiarity." 

"Of course, Ethan's fine. What am I going to do for you?" 

Lionel's good-natured grin darkened. "You wanted the resources, the money - you wanted the knowledge and the power. You had one and I had the other, but now - now I have them both. Unfortunately, I also have two new… glitches, shall we say, to go with them." 

"Glitches?" Dr. Ripley squawked nervously, fearing something in Lionel's eye that denoted him as one such glitch. 

"My first strike was less fruitful than anticipated, and in its rashness will be all too easily traced to me. I can no longer work through legitimate channels, I must go underground. Become the invisible man, as it were - a sort of svelte Keyser Soze. Now, as you might imagine, the challenge in making myself disappear is considerable. As fortune would have it, however, it appears that my second loose end may tie up the first." Lionel strapped a parachute to his back as he spoke. "Sawyer, I suggest we bring this little tête-à-tête to a close." 

A man is often plagued by three small words, but seldom the way Dr. Ripley was tortured by hearing Lionel Luthor say "second loose end" while looking pointedly in his direction. No sooner had his visceral fear overtaken him than he was wrestled to the gurney, forced into its restraints by Sawyer. Even as the nylon strap was fastened across his chest, the cynic in him couldn't help taking note of the irony when he remembered how he'd forced Marin into a similar position only days earlier. If nothing else, fate was meeting him with an even hand. 

"Mr. Luthor, I thought we had an understanding! I can help you! I _have_ helped you! You wouldn't even have escaped if it weren't for me!" 

Sawyer continued with the straps. 

"Indeed," Lionel conceded, his voice unfettered and smooth like melted caramel. "And I have one more very important task for you. It's brilliant, really, because it will quell suspicion long enough for me to vanish, and it will prevent me from having to worry about any half-baked tales you might get anxious enough to tell. I really can't have someone with your history of cracking under pressure wandering around knowing as much as you do." 

"I won't tell! I won't tell a soul, I promise!" Dr. Ripley screamed, his face reddening as he struggled against the gurney's restraints. 

"Oh, dear boy," Lionel cooed, placing a hand on Dr. Ripley's forehead. He leaned close until his warm, ruthless breath rolled over the doctor's flushed cheek like the Angel of Death. "It's your own soul I'd consider now, if I were in your situation." Then he laughed, maniacally, like a man who'd pushed himself into greatness for so long that he'd finally fallen into madness. "It should be quick, I'm certain! I'm counting on having very little of you left. Enjoy the remainder of your flight, doctor." 

Awash with sudden naseau, Dr. Ripley vomited and began to choke as he watched the backs of Lionel Luthor and Philip Sawyer retreat through the yawning side of the Med-Evac, realizing at last that he, the pilot, and the paramedic were nothing more than decoys to slow the investigation that would inevitably follow. 

Dr. Ethan Ripley found himself bitterly wondering how cold a man had to be to use a person's body so pitilessly, a fraction of a second before a magnificent explosion sent blinding heat and searing pain to collide in and around him in, leaving nothing of him to pity. 


	20. Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

The three prisoners, bound, gagged and blindfolded on the kitchen floor could only speculate about the cause of the commotion around them, and Lois had the added challenge of trying to make sense of anything through the haze inside her mind. A reverberating ache from behind her right ear told her she'd evidently been clocked upside the head, and she vaguely remembered tip-toeing stealthily toward the Kents' back door to retrieve her boots just before it was yanked open and she was dragged inside. But she could salvage no other detail until she awoke to the sound of gunfire, with the painful tingle of immobility firing through her limbs. These mental black holes were beginning to feel tediously recurrent. 

"Drop your weapons! Now! I said now!" a thick, gravelly voice barked. Only one weapon had discharged, and the rest now clattered in unison to the oft-scrubbed hardwood. "Now kick 'em over!" Evidently nobody complied, or at least not quickly enough for the gravelly voice. "I said kick 'em over! Do it!" The sound of a semi-automatic arsenal scraping over the wax-worn kitchen floor was surreally comforting, provided that Gravelly Voice and his compatriots were there to secure their release. "Okay, this ain't a dance, ladies, get a move on! Helton, you and Bloom get the guns." 

Gravelly Voice was interrupted by the garbled hiss of radio static. "Status, Gummersall." 

Gravelly Voice, now identified as Gummersall, unclipped his radio. "Ten men, disarmed, hostages secure." 

"Move out," ordered the voice on the radio. 

"You heard the man," Gummersall punctuated, and the sound of rhythmic shuffling of feet paraded out the back door. 

Muffled sounds seeped from outside, but inside the Kent kitchen there was no movement, almost no breath. Jonathan, Martha, and Lois sat blindly and uncertain, waiting, but not knowing what for or why. Silence filled the space, interminably it seemed, until the screen door creaked open again and followed the sound of expensive footsteps with a resounding racket when it hit the frame. 

When one is robbed of vision for even the shortest of intervals, one becomes a student of sound - and there was much knowledge to be gleaned from the steady, assured footfalls that took command of the Kent house without a word. So clearly did those footsteps speak, that Jonathan Kent felt no wonder when his blindfold was removed, revealing the unintelligible expression of Lex Luthor. 

. . .

Chloe was getting a crick in her neck from following Clark's gaze to the ebony sky, but nonetheless remained as transfixed as he was by its unchanging blackness. Like a train wreck or a plane crash or a thousand other things too horrible to be real and too real to look away from, the darkness of the early morning carried with it the crushing weight of impending disaster. 

"You know, they say a watched pot never boils," Chloe recited, breaking the glassy silence. 

"Spouting farm wisdom, Chloe?" Clark teased, but his tone was humorless. Banter had become the easiest way to pass the time without giving voice to his fears. 

"Well, you know - when in Rome," Chloe reasoned. "Or in a cornfield, as the case may be - and usually is." They'd returned to the flattened cornfield where they'd landed earlier, a wide-open space with no shade, no barriers between them and the first rays of the sun. 

Clark shook his head dejectedly. "I can't believe we're stuck here. This is all my fault." 

"What is? Your parents and my cousin being under house arrest? Uh, not your fault. For one thing, you couldn't do anything because your house was full of meteor rocks - " 

"Kryptonite." 

"Right - Kryptonite - so you couldn't help anyway. You - well, basically the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed - _flew_ - probably saving my life, incidentally - got us both out of harm's way, and now you self-sacrificially called Lex to help. But hey, if you insist on blaming yourself for something - then I'll let it be your fault that I have a corn stalk stabbing me in the butt." 

Clark smiled wanly. "I just don't like feeling helpless." 

"It's just part of being human," Chloe shrugged. "Sometimes you have no choice but to wait and hope." 

Clark huffed. "You sound like my dad." 

"I could do worse, I suppose. Just so long as I don't do it in flannel." 

Clark was about to retort when Chloe's phone came to life in his hand, its screen illuminated with his home number. "Mom? Dad?" he answered. 

"Clark! Are you all right, Son? Where are you?" Jonathan's voice was fraught with concerns that his mind was still searching for words to address. Through the duration of his internment, the only thought that continually pierced him was that he didn't know what had happened to his son. 

"I'm fine, Dad, we're okay." 

"We? Who's with you? What happened?" Jonathan fired his questions at a rapid clip, unable to believe that his son was unharmed until he could see him for himself. 

"Chloe's with me, we - I'll tell you when we get home. But you're okay? You and Mom? And Lois? What did they do to you? Are they all gone?" Like father, like son, the vein of familial concern ran deep. 

"We're okay - they had us tied up, but they didn't do anything else. Except to Lois - they hadn't expected her and they hit her to knock her out. She's okay, but she had a pretty nasty cut behind her ear. Lex took her to the hospital." 

Clark was dumbstruck, although he should have expected it. "Lex was there." He didn't bother asking for verification, he should have known that Lex wouldn't have stayed away. He never had before. 

"Yeah, we'll have to talk about that. For now, I just want you home safe. We'll clear out the Kryptonite. Where are you?" It's amazing how narrowly a father's mind focuses when his child is in any peril - there were so many other questions to ask, so many things that had happened over the course of the night that for now would remain unanswered, until he was assured his son had escaped unscathed. Nothing else mattered. 

"Uh… we're in Minnesota. I think the town is Roseville?" 

Jonathan's silence was palpable. "What are you doing in Minnesota?" Martha glanced up sharply from the table, where she was soaking her long-bound wrists in a bowl of cool water. 

Clark hesitated, glanced at the sky and then at Chloe. "Waiting for sunrise." 

. . .

Marin was at first dismayed to find that the end of the bus line left her at the crossroads of two dusty country lanes, but as she trekked toward the slowly growing spot on the horizon that was Smallville she realized how much she'd been craving the solitude. She'd needed to be all alone in the only space she'd ever been that was wide enough to contain the storm that raged inside her, to give it room to rain down without drowning her. With each breath she expelled a tiny crumb of her turmoil, and the calm emptiness of Kansas at that moment absorbed her into its serenity. For a full minute as she trudged along the lonely stretch of highway, Marin Blake felt at peace. 

It wasn't until she'd penetrated the outskirts and found herself walking through the center of town that she began to feel stifled again. She suddenly realized that, despite all she knew about Clark Kent, she didn't know his life, his family, or even where in this one-horse town (at least it would be if it weren't a farm community) his home was. She knew his secrets, but now she had one too, and that was the unknown she feared the most. No words came into her head that didn't sound trite and useless, too weak to carry such heavy news. How could she tell a man - no, he really was just a boy - who had never been with anybody, that he was going to be a father? 

Marin had just begun to consider running back down the road to wait for the next bus when one of the quaint storefronts spat out a gaggle of over-caffeinated teenagers, all laden with pastries and paper cups. She looked up at the marquee over the door, boasting a two-for-one cappuccino special in celebration of its grand re-opening. _The Talon_. She knew she'd find someone there - a specific someone. She heard a somewhat agitated female voice when she stepped through the door. 

"Still no answer," the girl reported as she stepped through a green swinging door, pulling strands of her long dark hair away from her lip gloss. "It's not like her to be late like this without calling, but I shouldn't leave until she gets here. Or at least not until Linda does." 

"Maybe she had car trouble," speculated a young man with sandy blond hair. "Happens a lot around here, doesn't it?" 

The girl behind the counter smiled with perhaps more amusement than the comment warranted. "I'm sure she'll be here any minute, and then you and I - " 

"Excuse me?" Marin interrupted, deciding there wouldn't be a perfectly convenient time for her to disrupt the lives of Smallvillians, so she may as well jump in. 

The girl looked startled and somewhat guilty, and the man wheeled at Marin's words. "Oh - I didn't realize we had a customer. I haven't kept you waiting, have I?" The girl brushed her hair out of her face again and then began to wipe the counter briskly, her eyes darting fleetingly back to the suddenly silent blond. "Well, thanks for dropping in, Coach Teague. Good luck at the game." 

He smiled bemusedly. "We'll need you there for support. What do I owe you for the coffee?" 

"Oh, it's on the house… for faculty, of course." 

"Well, thank you… Miss Lang." Jason Teague took a sip from his cup as if nothing were amiss, and when he'd passed out of Marin's view he turned to bow charmingly and blow his girlfriend an animated kiss. 

"So," the flustered brunette began, turning back to Marin. "Six fifteen on a Sunday morning - definitely a caffeine quest. What can I get for you?" 

Marin stepped up and leaned on the counter. "Actually… um, you're Lana Lang, right?" 

Lana, having had more than her share of run-ins with off-beat admirers, raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Yes…" 

"I'm looking for… a friend of yours." 

Lana didn't like the cryptic nature of the conversation, but took the bait anyway. "Who?" 

"Clark Kent." Marin bit her lip, trying to gauge Lana's reaction to the name. 

"Ah," Lana responded ambiguously, resuming her high-gloss buffing of the empty countertop. "Clark. Of course." 

"You are… a… friend, of Clark's - right?" Marin found herself stumbling over the supposition, wondering what feeling Lana would have - if any - if she knew the secret that Marin carried, knowing that Lana couldn't know how she came to possess it. There are certain kinds of revelations that have a way of reminding people of feelings they'd hoped had been put out to pasture. And sometimes those feelings breed contempt. 

Lana looked contemplative for a moment. "Yeah, of course, just - you know, people grow up, sometimes they don't see each other the way the used to think they did. Clark's great, he's just… Clark. You know, what can I say?" She tipped her head to the side and eyed Marin peculiarly. "So, you - you're a… friend of Clark's?" 

Marin blushed involuntarily. "Yeah - well, sort of." 

"Not from around here, right?" Lana gave Marin her open, designated welcome-wagon smile. 

"Metropolis, actually." 

"Metropolis? How do you know Clark?" 

"Just bumped into him one day - right time, right place kind of thing." 

Lana nodded knowingly. "That's definitely Clark." 

"Yeah… so, can you tell me how to find him? I have his address, I just don't actually know how to get there." 

Lana glanced up at the clock. "Actually, I was thinking of stopping over there myself - his mom works here, and she was supposed to open this morning but she didn't show up. That's really unusual for her, and nobody's answering their phone, so I was going to check in - make sure everything's okay. You could go with me, if you want to." 

Marin froze. She didn't know exactly what was happening at the Kent farm, or even if it was still happening, but she was certain that in any case it was the last place Clark would want Lana to be. "Oh, no, I couldn't ask you to do that - you have a shop to run here, I can get there myself, I just need directions." 

Lana waved a nonchalant hand. "Oh, don't worry, it's no big deal - I'm going either way, as soon as Linda gets here. Once the six .a.m. crowd breaks down the door for their caffeine fix, it's pretty dead here until around nine on Sundays. Besides, we have another person coming in at seven." 

Exhausted and at a loss for any other course of action, Marin gave in - going with Lana was better than Lana going to the Kents' alone, at least. "Okay, if you're sure it won't be an inconvenience." 

"Not at all - we'll go as soon as Linda gets here." 

. . .

Lex was driving Lois' car, asking her inane questions to try and keep her conscious as he tore up the road at his usual break-neck pace en route to Smallville Medical Center. "Talk to me, or I'm going to have to resort to asking how many fingers I'm holding up." 

"Go ahead and do it, then I'll hold one up for you," Lois retorted, dousing her voice in a syrup of mock sweetness. 

Lex chuckled, finding her true fire much more alluring than any false saccharin smile. Somewhere in the distance, a rumble in the sky caught his ear. Was that thunder? "There must be a storm coming." 


	21. Chapter Twenty One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

There was something about the way the firelight played in the facets of the cut crystal glass on the corner of Lex's desk. The glass was empty, but nonetheless contained the warmth of the fire because it could reflect it. The flames themselves, though - they danced over the intricate surface, both teasing and torturous, pleasant and painful. Lex understood the flames, but he'd become the glass. 

His father was the fire. 

For so long Lex had felt empty, soulless, cold-blooded. He couldn't sustain any warmth on his own - not in his heart. He only felt goodness when he saw it in others, and hoped that noticing their goodness might mean he had some of it himself. It warmed him to think so. 

But heat was different, it burned and fed on him, dried him out, but it pushed him - it made him ambitious. It made him fight, both against it and beyond it. That's what his father was to him - a heat source, something to fuel him, to give him a purpose. As long as Lex had Lionel Luthor to challenge, he had a direction. He had a clear-cut image of what he didn't want to be. A physical manifestation to defeat. 

Now he had nothing of his father to defeat other than that which remained inside himself. As he sat with his head resting sideways on the transparent desktop, eyes focused inside the light refracted through the crystal tumbler, he could not yet decide whether he was grieved by the loss of his father, or his opponent. He couldn't even decide if he believed that Lionel Luthor was dead, as he'd just been informed. 

He only knew that he was stricken by the realization that he wanted to believe it, and therefore it wasn't the last of his father that he'd defeated. 

It was the last of himself. 

. . .

"Dad, unless that kick is from a grandé cup of something caffeinated, I could really use another ten minutes," Chloe grumbled sleepily when something nudged her foot. 

"You can take ten or twenty for all I care, but not in my field!" 

Chloe's eyes flew open and she bolted upright. "You're not my dad!" 

"'Course not, no daughter of mine would be spending the night in a cornfield." The landowner looked down at Chloe and Clark, who was still asleep, with obvious disdain. 

Chloe ignored him. "Daylight!" she cried in a panic. "Clark, wake up - wake up, we fell asleep and the sun is up!" She shook his shoulder. 

Clark opened his eyes groggily and sat up, looking around in confusion. "Where…?" Then realization dawned on him. "Daylight! We fell asleep! How could we fall asleep? What time is it?" He'd been drained by the events of the previous night, and when he finally knew that his family was safe and he could still do nothing but wait, he and Chloe had laid down and evidently succumbed to their exhaustion. 

It wasn't until he stood and began assessing his strength to see if he could fly again that he even noticed the man standing before them. "Who are you?" 

"Considering this is my field, I think I'm the one who gets to ask the questions. Now who are _you_?" 

Clark took Chloe by the hand and began to back away. "We're uh… we're leaving," he answered. 

The man chuckled and dropped his gaze to his feet, intending to deliver a pompous retort when he looked up again - only to find himself face to face with empty morning air. 

. . .

"Should you have done that right in front of him?" Chloe asked with concern after they'd found cover behind a stand of maple trees. 

Clark shrugged. "It's not the first time. He won't know what he saw or didn't see, he'll just figure his eyes are playing tricks on him or something. We don't have time to waste standing around trying to explain ourselves. What time is it?" 

Chloe checked her phone. "It's eight o'clock - we only lost an hour." 

"_Only_ an hour?" 

"Well, it could have been worse! Everybody's safe - " 

"For now," Clark huffed. "We have to get back now." Clark ran a hand over his face and looked up at the sky. 

Chloe looked up with him. "Do you think you can do it?" 

Clark stood, hands on his hips and face turned upward. "Won't know until I try." He took a deep breath and scratched his head, then held his arm out to Chloe. "Come here, and - " 

"I know, hold on," Chloe smiled. This time, without being surrounded by commandos and knowing what it was that Clark was trying to do, she couldn't quell her excitement. 

Clark closed his eyes, and was surprised to find that he almost effortlessly drifted through the veil in his mind that partitioned him from Kal-El. He felt light again, suspended gently in emptiness. 

"Clark?" Chloe's voice sounded distant, but it echoed through his mind and became louder until he opened his eyes. 

"Hmm?" He felt an odd sort of peacefulness. 

"You did it," Chloe whispered. 

Clark looked down to see that they had indeed risen over the trees. He smiled down at Chloe and held her tightly. "Are you scared?" 

Chloe shook her head. "No, this is… this is incredible." Clark realized that the distance in Chloe's voice wasn't due to his retreat into his mind, it was because she herself had retreated into wonderment. "Are you?" 

Clark smiled and breathed in the stratosphere. "Not anymore. Let's go home." 

. . .

"I am so sorry!" Lana cried as she already had at least a dozen times, bustling past Marin with a tray of steaming lattes. "Five more minutes, tops!" An unexpected rush of customers had flooded the Talon, requiring Lana to remain at her post for another ninety minutes. 

"Don't worry, take your time," Marin replied sincerely, hoping the delay would leave enough time for the situation at the Kent farm to be remedied before Lana Lang arrived to witness it. Her news was going to be wrenching enough to deliver without adding Clark's undoubted anger if she were to get Lana involved, however inadvertently. She'd tried to go on alone, but Lana insisted on playing chauffer and kept placating her with pastries. Exhausted as she was, she let herself go blank and accept the momentary respite. 

The crowd was finally thinning and two more members of the late-morning crew had arrived, so Lana quickly untied her apron and grabbed her jacket. "Come on, let's make a break for it." 

Marin followed Lana to her SUV, and once settled into the passenger seat she realized that, despite her fatigue, she felt strong, healthy - indeed, better than she could ever remember feeling. She couldn't imagine why, given that she'd spent half the night crouched on the floor, three hours on the torn vinyl seat of a bus, and then walked to downtown Smallville. She should at least be sore. 

. . .

They flew at the same tremendous speed as the night before - making the trip from Roseville, Minnesota to Smallville, Kansas in mere moments - but this time Clark eased up on his pace before attempting to land, bringing himself and Chloe gently back to the earth without missing a step. 

Chloe found her second plane-free flight just as speech-robbing as her first, and couldn't tear her eyes away from the hole in the roof of the Kent barn as she and Clark glided over it. There were moments in the last twelve hours in which she'd been able to just be Chloe, exchanging witty banter and the occasional meaningful gaze with her "once-almost-more-than-a-friend." Now she marveled at how she'd been able to speak at all, because there wasn't a thing about what she'd learned since the night before that didn't leave her breathless. 

"Are you okay, Chloe?" Clark was beginning to question the wisdom of letting anyone fly with him, if it was affecting enough to leave even Chloe Sullivan without words - twice, at that. 

Chloe nodded emphatically, though her eyes still looked far away. "Yeah, I'm great, really." She smiled reassuringly. 

"Clark?" Martha emerged from the front door, her voice all at once relieved, anxious, questioning and protective. "Clark! Oh, thank God!" She ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. Tears that she hadn't intended to shed fell onto his collar. "Even though I'm usually sure you're going to be okay, I can never believe it until you're actually here." 

Clark's knee-jerk reaction to his mother was unexpectedly emotional. She had such strength that even when it was tested to its furthest limits - and being Clark's mother had its share of tests - she usually maintained her relatively calm, if tearful inner fortitude. She had to hold herself up through so many trials, and when they were over she continued to stand tall, because whether or not they always knew it, she was a pillar on which the Kent men relied. 

Admissions of deep fear were rare from Martha Kent, as were tears from her son, and few things apart from his mother's vulnerability could elicit them from Clark. Overnight, Clark had bridged his heart with his destiny, and now he knew that there was nothing he wouldn't do, nowhere he wouldn't go, nobody he wouldn't face, if it meant he could save anyone the anguish he saw in his own mother's eyes. 

Jonathan was overwhelmed when he saw his son, standing strong and tall as he always did, in defiance of Jonathan's mortal expectations. Despite all he knew about Clark, the anxious father in him always half believed that his son would return mangled, bruised, bloody - or in his worst nightmares, not at all. Though an interval of two hours had passed since he'd learned that Clark was unharmed, each of the one-hundred twenty minutes that ticked by was an arrow that pierced him, reminding him that he had not yet seen, and could not yet be certain. He believed in Clark without reservation, but when his son was out of sight and danger lurked nearby, Jonathan didn't have the power to keep himself from fearing. 

Conquered as he was by the veracity of his emotions, Jonathan could only wordlessly join his family, enclosing his wife and son in his embrace as they all gave themselves over to bittersweet reunion. 

Chloe stood nearby and watched without an inkling of discomfort. Less than a day earlier she'd have uttered one of her famously snarky excuses to slink away, leaving the family to regroup. But now she understood, she'd seen the other side, she'd seen the things that Jonathan and Martha Kent had always known about their son, and as awestruck as she was by all that she'd learned, she marveled with almost even incredulity at these two people - people gravely underestimated. People with superhuman abilities to manage a secret - and to unquestioningly choose to love what must have been the most unusual child on Earth. An astounding feat demanding greater valor than most mere humans possessed. The Kents were superheroes. 

. . .

None of the four knew how long they'd been standing motionless in the drive, but when Martha turned her head slightly to wipe a tear from her cheek, she caught sight of Chloe for the first time. "Chloe!" she exclaimed, and Jonathan snapped to attention as well. 

"Hi, Chloe," Jonathan began, trying to adopt a normal, casual demeanor. "How long have you been there?" 

Clark walked over to Chloe and led her closer to his parents. "She came with me, Dad. Remember? I told you she was with me." 

Perplexed and somewhat panicked, Jonathan and Martha exchanged a look of alarm that had become a familiar ritual over the years. "Yes…" Jonathan said slowly. "I remember." 

"It's okay, Dad. She knows - she knows everything." 

Jonathan rubbed his chin and looked deeply considerate. "Do you think that was necessary, Son?" 

"I really couldn't avoid it, Dad." 

"How's that?" 

Clark turned toward the barn, looking up at the jagged edges of the boards surrounding the hole left by their escape. "We were surrounded." 

In his angst, Jonathan hadn't even noticed that his barn was yawning openly to the sky. His jaw dropped and he ran inside to look up through the rafters, and the others followed suit. Mystified, he turned to Clark. "What happened?" 

"I, uh… flew through the roof?" Clark toed the floor, listlessly nudging a piece of straw from side to side; an old habit from the days when he would break lamps, furniture, farm equipment - and then endure another lecture on how vital it was that he learn to curb his strength. 

Both Jonathan and Martha were struck silent, trying to reconstruct the event in their minds as they regarded the shards of the formerly intact roof. "You flew through the roof…" Jonathan repeated in astonishment. 

Chloe, having gone a record-breaking interlude without uttering a word, finally spoke. "You know, I always thought this place could use a skylight." 

Martha released her bundled nerves in an airy laugh. "Oh, Chloe!" She crossed the debris in the middle of the barn to hug the girl. "I'm so sorry - how are you handling this?" 

Chloe gratefully accepted and returned the hug, but looked at Martha in shock. "You're sorry? What on Earth for? You were tied up in the kitchen all night, I went joyriding in mid-air." 

"Joyriding?" Jonathan raised an eyebrow along with his parental radar. 

Clark looked up innocently. "No, Dad - she just means that we were okay, and - well, we were flying, but we were okay." 

Jonathan looked up at the gaping hole again until it almost made him dizzy. He stumbled back a step and Clark held out an arm to steady him. 

"You okay Dad?" 

Jonathan put a hand on Clark's shoulder. "This just might take me a while to get my head around," he said with a warm smile. "We'd better get this covered until we can fix it - I don't know how we'd explain this to people." 

Clark jumped at the thought. "Lex! Lex saw this, didn't he?" 

"He might have," Martha speculated. 

"He was here, right?" 

Jonathan nodded, wishing it weren't true. "Yes, he was here, and about that, Son - " 

"Later, Dad - we'll talk inside. First, like you said, we should get the roof covered. I'll do that, won't take a minute. Did you get all the Kryptonite out?" 

Martha nodded. "At least we think so. There was a lot of it - the refined bars, the ones Lionel had in his office." 

Clark winced. "Did Lex see that too?" 

Jonathan nodded. "He couldn't have missed it, it was everywhere." 

"Great." Clark closed his eyes and shook his head. "There's no way to explain that." 

"We'll figure something out, Clark." Chloe assured. 

"I don't know how that's possible," he said, shaking his head again. Resolving to think about it after he'd taken care of the business at hand, he turned to focus through the barn and into the house. "There are a few bars left." 

"Where?" Martha cried, alarmed. 

"Two under the front steps, one under my bed, one under your dresser, and one in the refrigerator." 

"The fridge? That's creative," Chloe smirked. 

"Okay, well, we'll take care of that, and you cover the roof, and then you two can get cleaned up and we'll talk about Lex." 

"Jonathan, they're probably starving." 

"Okay, you can eat, and then we'll talk about Lex." 

"Sounds like a plan," Chloe agreed, and followed Jonathan and Martha back to the house. 

Clark had covered the roof with an old tarp and lashed it to the eaves before the front door had even closed behind the others, so he walked the perimeter of the yard to survey the trampled landscape of his home as he waited for the all-clear. He'd just rounded the corner behind the barn when he thought he faintly heard the crunch of tires down the road. He tuned his hearing and heard voices - female, talking about recipes, Metropolis, waiting tables, coffee, Paris… Lana! And Marin? Flustered, knowing there was no way to hide the damage inflicted by last night's visitors, Clark sped down the lane and pretended to be crossing the road, just before the car and its occupants were close enough to see that anything was amiss. 

The car slowed to a stop and Lana rolled her window down. "Out jogging?" 

Clark drew a deep breath and nodded, trying to look at least a little winded. "Oh, yeah - miles. Hi Lana." He nodded and peered through the driver's side window at the passenger. "Marin?" 

Marin smiled sheepishly. "Hi, Clark," she squeaked. 

"This is… a surprise." To Marin's relief, he didn't look entirely unhappy - albeit confused, and rightly so. 

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry to just drop in, but - I…" 

Clark didn't know why she was there, but he was certain that her reason couldn't be shared in front of Lana. "No need to explain. Want to walk from here?" 

"Sure," Marin nodded and unbuckled her seatbelt. She surmised that Clark must have heard them coming, and that her suspicions were correct - he didn't want Lana or anybody else anywhere near the Kent farm. 

"I can drive you both the rest of the way, if you want," Lana offered. 

"Nah, it's not far, and it's a nice morning for a walk." 

"Well, actually, giving Marin a ride is only half the reason I'm here. Is your mom okay?" 

Clark blinked uncertainly. "My mom?" 

"Yeah, she was supposed to open the Talon this morning, and - " 

"Oh yeah! Yeah of course." Clark nodded a little too affirmatively. 

"So, she's okay?" 

"Yeah, she's - well no, she's sick, but she'll be fine. Just a bug." Clark threw an anxious glance toward Marin. 

"She, um… she didn't call in." 

Clark slapped his forehead. "Ah, that's my fault - the phone's not working and my dad asked me to stop by and tell you she couldn't come, and I just - I completely forgot." 

Lana gave Clark the slow, subtle nod she'd become all too accustomed to, after a litany of "I forgot's" and "I have to go's." It didn't surprise her anymore. "Well, just tell her I hope she feels better soon. It was nice to meet you, Marin. Stop by again before you leave. Bye Clark." She rolled her window up and turned around, driving back the way she came. 

Clark watched her go, still and silent. 

"I'm sorry, Clark, she insisted on driving me, I couldn't talk her out of it." 

Clark inhaled deeply. "It's okay, it doesn't matter. She's gone, and we have bigger things to worry about." 

_You have no idea_. 

"Do you know what happened here last night?" 

"Look, Clark, there's something I have to tell you - " 

Clark was looking skyward, almost trancelike. "I flew last night. And this morning." He hadn't heard her. 

"See, something happened at the lab, and… what?" Marin's eyes widened and she couldn't suppress a grin. "You flew? Really? You didn't just float?" 

"No, I - it was amazing, I just… okay. Lionel Luthor had all these men here last night, you know - and they had Chloe and I cornered in the barn, and we had no other way out so I just - I kind of pushed through something, and then I did it." Clark's eyes were alight like a little boy who'd received the train set he'd begged for on Christmas morning. 

_Oh, he's so young to be so old_. "That's fantastic, Clark! I had no idea you'd be able to do it that soon, that's - that's incredible!" 

"Well, I was really motivated." 

"And this morning? Did it work the same way?" 

Clark shook his and smiled. "No, I hardly had to think about it at all, it was like I just told myself to fly, and I did. I don't know - I think that whatever happened last night broke something loose. I feel… different. Once the sun came up this morning and I was recharged I felt… well, I felt different. It's hard to describe." 

"I'm really happy for you, Clark, that's fantastic." Marin was sincere, but she couldn't keep the traces of sadness out of her voice. 

Clark realized that the reason for her visit must have serious repercussions, or she wouldn't risk it at a time like this. "So, why did you come all the way out here?" 

Marin caught her breath and closed her eyes. They were walking up the drive now. Soon they'd be at the house. This might be the only chance she'd have to talk to him alone, and she couldn't bear to tell him why she was there in front of his family. She had just mustered the courage and very nearly the words to go with it when Martha walked outside. 

"Clark, it's not quite - oh, hello?" Martha looked quizzically from Clark to Marin. 

"It's okay Mom, this is Marin Blake - she's part of Dr. Swann's team." 

"Oh! Yes, of course, to what do we owe the honor?" Even when surprised, Martha Kent was quick with courtesy, and she didn't yet know that what had befallen her family the night before was partially due to Dr. Swann's team 

Marin hesitated. "Maybe we should go inside first." 

"Oh, certainly - I just have to get these last two bars from under the steps." Martha knelt to reach between the slats. 

"Bars?" Marin queried. 

"Kryptonite," Clark explained. "The house was full of refined Kryptonite bars." 

"Ah - Luthor." 

"Clark, where exactly are they under here? I can't feel anything." Martha had one arm under the steps up to her shoulder, feeling in the mud for something smooth and lethal. 

Clark focused his vision. "You've almost got one, just a little to your left there," he called. 

"Here, let me give you a hand," Marin offered, approaching the steps. She was still several feet away when her insides suddenly twisted and she reeled back, struggling for breath as she clutched at her abdomen. 

Martha had just gotten a hand around one of the bars when she heard Marin hit the ground, and wheeled to help the girl. "Marin, what happened? What's wrong?" 

"Mom! What's going on?" Clark shouted from the minimal safe distance. 

"I don't know! She - " Then Martha saw it. She had moved her hand closer to Marin - the hand holding the Kryptonite - and the girl's veins bulged through her skin, green and thickly pulsing. She cried out and threw the green block as far as she could and tried to drag Marin away from the stairs. 

As soon as they were close enough, Clark took over and pulled Marin out of range of the Kryptonite's effects. 

"I'll get the other piece," Martha announced and ran back to the stairs. 

"Marin?" Clark looked down at her, bewildered and concerned. "Marin, what was that? How could you possibly react like that?" 

Wheezing and fighting to sit up under her own volition, Marin couldn't answer. She could only see the confusion in Clark's face, and knew that she would only make it worse. 


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Bridgette Crosby was not a pushover. She wasn't easily fooled, manipulated, or cajoled. Nobody pulled the wool over her eyes. That was why she was so irate that a sniveling parasite like Ethan Ripley had been the one to do it. 

And even worse, he'd done it brilliantly. 

For all his massive faults of character and lack of moral fiber, Dr. Crosby could not deny the frightening intellect he possessed. Poring over the meticulously kept records that he'd been forced to leave behind, she found that the staggering advances he'd made on his own in only seven months - and in secret - put most of the progress made in the field of biogenetic research over the last decade to insufferable shame. 

"This is unbelievable," Dr. Prescott understated, herself digesting another of Dr. Ripley's covert testing logbooks. "How could he do all this without any of us ever knowing? I mean, he had to use the Crays, we should have noticed something." 

Dr. Crosby looked up from Ripley's former console. "Of course he used the Crays - what would be strange about a biogeneticist assigned to model alien DNA using supercomputers to analyze the strand?" Her tone was more terse than intended, but Dr. Prescott was still so astonished by what they'd just learned that she took no offense. 

"I just can't believe we never saw this - he made all of these discoveries while every single one of us had access to the data, and we didn't suspect a _thing_." 

Dr. Crosby leaned back in the wheeled desk chair and scrutinized the digital model of Clark's DNA on the monitor. A model no one but Dr. Ripley even knew had been created until ten minutes previous. A model with disturbing implications. "There was nothing to suspect - we couldn't possibly have physically monitored the gene sequencing. Besides, it doesn't matter anymore, how he did this. What matters is what we do about it. And how we're going to break the news to the Kents." 

Dr. Prescott nodded gravely in concession. "Do you know what you're going to tell them?" 

Dr. Crosby shrugged with a placidity she didn't feel. "Everything. Let's get this packed up, it all belongs to them." 

Dr. Prescott looked around Ripley's lab at the stacks of research, samples, studies, pharmaceuticals, and files. "All of it?" 

"All of it," Dr. Crosby affirmed. "Dr. Swann's orders. I'm taking it to Smallville." 

. . .

Lionel had underestimated the strain that his descent from the ill-fated helicopter would put on his heart, still recovering from his myocardial jailbreak. It was the second time that night he'd miscalculated a risk, a fact which left him feeling distinctly unsettled. He loathed any disquieting thought that made him question his own competency - he liked to reserve such questions for those in his employ. 

He had behaved rashly, he knew - though he admitted it bitterly even to himself. In the space of a few hours he had learned the truth about Clark, ordered an abduction which failed, escaped from prison and fabricated the appearance of his own death. Productive hours, yes, but reckless. Haste makes waste, the old adage said, and it proved true on this occasion. His quest for the truth about Clark had activated a hair trigger, and he impetuously moved in on the boy, trying to trap him in his home before giving himself time to fully examine the situation. 

Careless. If he'd been one of his minions, he'd have fired himself for being so impulsive. It was decidedly out of character. Now he'd lost the upper hand and revealed his cards to his adversary. He couldn't afford to have his next venture falter because he hadn't fastidiously plotted every footstep. He could not permit another wildcard to come into play. 

Clark was wildcard. 

Unyielding. 

Impassable. 

What mattered was the girl, Miss Blake, and the new life contained within her. A life the likes of which had never been born on Earth, the study of whom could answer all the questions that young Mr. Kent never would. A life that Clark would most certainly fight diligently to keep from the clutches of a man like Lionel Luthor. That left Lionel with but one course of action. There was only one way he would be able to control the child. 

He must kill the father. 

. . .

_This has got to be the most irritating place I've ever been_. Lois was waiting impatiently in an exam room that was painted an absurdly bright shade of blue. _Aren't hospitals supposed to be nauseatingly pastel? Supposed to be soothing aesthetic, right?_ It wasn't really the color that bothered her - it was just a scapegoat, because she couldn't express her annoyance at being ignored for over an hour as - of course - there was nobody to complain to. She was subconsciously trying to remember how to spell "aesthetic" when a dark form with a contrastingly pale head filled the open doorway. 

Lois waited for her visitor to give some form of explanation as to his presence, but he made no move to do so. "Sure, forego the conventional pleasantries one usually expects when a person walks into your room uninvited, sans knocking I might add. What do you want, Luthor?" 

"My apologies," Lex offered, bowing his head slightly forward, his hands thrust into the deep pockets of his svelte black coat. "Though, I'm a bit wounded by the greeting, considering it was me who went to the trouble to bring you here." He ventured into the room and closed the door behind him. 

Lois smirked. "Oh, that's right! In that case, I was too nice. I'll forgive you though, if you'll get me out of here." As Lex moved closer, she marked something in his expression that betrayed something wilder, something all at once more bold and more subdued than when she'd seen him last. One hour's interval had altered him. 

"Now, Miss Lane, you don't strike me as needing anyone's help to post bail from Smallville Medical Center." 

"Miss Lane?" Lois repeated. There was something foreboding about his formality. Lois shook her head. "You're right, I can take care of myself." She moved to pass him, but he caught her by the arm. 

"What are you doing?" Lois hissed. This time she detected an errant flash in his eye. He seemed… detached. 

Lex smiled and loosened his grip, giving her arm a gentle pat. "No need to deploy your defenses just yet, Lois. All I want to do is talk." 

Lois yanked her arm back. "Talking doesn't require physical restraint," she spat. 

Lex seemed to find that amusing. "That implies there's a way to restrain you." 

Lois rolled her eyes. "Okay, flattering as this is, I'm not interested in hearing you keep saying things I already know about myself. Get to the point, or get out." She didn't especially want to stay herself, but for the time being she had a place to throw him out of if she felt it was necessary. 

Lex nodded concedingly and turned away from her. "Have you ever considered the bond between a parent and a child?" 

"Challenged it, mostly. What are you getting at?" 

"There's something binding in blood, isn't there? A sameness that's undeniable. Inevitable." Lex knew he was being cryptic. It was part of his method. 

Lois was getting frustrated. "Are we getting to the point soon, 'cause scratching at the surface doesn't seem to be uncovering anything." 

"Ah, but you've just come to it." 

"To what? The point?" 

"Precisely. All this time, I've been - _we've_ been scratching at the surface, and never really uncovered anything at all." 

"We who? What surface?" 

"My father." 

"You're father…" 

"My father is dead." 

"Dead?" Lois assumed she'd misheard. Lionel Luthor was an iconic, larger-than-life villainous man. He'd be the one to buy his way out of death, if anybody could. "I'm... sorry, Lex." 

Lex turned back to her, his visage far too serene to be that of a son grieving the loss of his father. "Is there some reason you should be? I myself feel no guilt." 

Lois couldn't fathom how to respond to that. "What is it you want from me, Lex?" 

Lex took a breath and began to circle her. "My father is responsible for the hostage situation last night." 

"You're sure about that?" 

"His long-standing obsession with Clark leaves little room for doubt." 

"Again, exactly what does this have to do with me" 

"My father died early this morning in the explosion of Med-Evac helicopter, after he suffered a heart attack." He delivered the news as if he were reading a particularly insipid stock ticker. 

Lois was struck by how coldly he spoke. "An _explosion_?" 

"Interesting timing, wouldn't you say? Clark's house is under siege, he believes my father to be responsible, and in the middle of the most daring strike he's ever initiated, he _dies_. Endgame. Checkmate. All for nothing." 

"I'm still not sure I understand why - " 

"Clark wasn't there. He wasn't at the house, but he was evidently supposed to be." 

"Well it's a good thing he wasn't." 

"Things happen around Clark, Lois. Inexplicable things." 

Lois' eyes widened. "Are you saying that _Clark_ killed your father?" 

Lex smiled eerily. "Not without reason." He stepped toward Lois, backing her against the door. "I want to know _everything_ that happened at the Kent farm." 

. . .

"Dad, get the door!" Clark shouted as he ran up the porch steps with Marin in his arms. 

Jonathan held the front door open for Clark and the stranger. "Clark, what happened? Who is that?" 

Clark didn't answer at first. He rushed Marin to the couch and looked into her eyes. "Something's wrong - she reacted to the Kryptonite like I do, but she's not recovering as fast. I'm not sure she's recovering at all." He spun frantically and searched his mother's face. "Was I ever like this?" 

Martha shook her head. "Not just from exposure, no - only when you were shot." Martha walked over and knelt next to Clark. "Marin, honey," she soothed. "Can you hear me?" 

Marin focused her bleary gaze on Martha's warm face. She could understand everything, she just couldn't seem to form words. 

"She seems to be alert," Martha assessed. "Marin, try to breathe, calm down, just breathe slowly, the Kryptonite is gone, you're okay now." Martha, always solid in a crisis, kept her voice at an even, lulling tone. 

"Someone want to tell me what's going on here?" Jonathan tried to keep the demanding color out of his voice. 

Chloe stood by, curious but not yet surprised by another strange occurrence on the Kent farm. 

Clark trusted his mother to care for Marin as she'd always done for him when he'd been afflicted by the meteor rocks, so he stood and turned to his father. "Her name is Marin Blake, she's a research assistant - she works for Dr. Swann." 

Jonathan rubbed a hand over his forehead and tried to grasp the situation. "Why is she here?" 

Clark shook his head. "I have no idea, Lana dropped her off, and -" 

"Whoa, wait - Lana was here? Just now?" 

"It's okay, Dad, I heard them coming and met them down the road. Lana didn't see anything." 

"What's this about the Kryptonite?" 

"I don't know, she - she didn't seem to expect it, 'cause she offered to help get rid of it, and then she just collapsed. Dad, she reacted just like I do - Mom saw her veins." 

Both Clark and Jonathan turned back to Marin, and Chloe edged closer to the group clustered around the couch. "How can she have the same reaction but not get any better?" 

"I think she's recovering, just much more slowly," Martha surmised. Marin's breathing was less shallow and her complexion was regaining some color. "Can you sit up if I help you?" Marin managed a weak nod and held Martha's right hand while she used her left to help the girl up. "Clark, run and get her a glass of water, would you?" 

Clark returned with the glass almost before his mother finished the request, offering it to Marin who accepted it with both hands. "Thank you," she mouthed silently from beneath her heavy eyes. 

Being the subject of group scrutiny was markedly uncomfortable, so Marin took momentary solace in slowly draining the glass of cool water. The four expectant faces surrounding her did nothing to assuage her distress. 

Clark knelt in front of her when she finished, taking the empty glass from her hand. He searched her eyes for an answer, but couldn't yet pinpoint the question. "Marin, is there something you haven't told me?" 

Marin felt as if her heart had leapt into her throat. _Am I so transparent_? 

Clark's mind was racing through possible explanations. "You're not… well, are you? No, of course - you're not… right?" 

Marin's pulse raced, and she wasn't sure whether she was relieved or terrified that he might have already guessed it. "Not what?" 

Clark could hardly dare to speak it, almost hoping it were true but finding the idea ludicrous. "Kryptonian?" 

Tears brimmed Marin's eyes as looked into Clark's, so open and hungry to not be alone. "No," she choked. "No, I'm not." 

Clark smiled, half-sorrowfully. "Of course." It was almost flippant, as he was trying so hard to conceal his disappointment. Since he'd learned that Jor-El had once visited Earth, an unspoken notion had played in the back of his mind that there may have been someone else visiting before Krypton was destroyed. Someone who never made it home again. It was a dream he never divulged. "So why did you react to the Kryptonite?" 

Marin bit her lip and begged herself to stop crying. "It never happened before, when I worked with the samples." 

Clark recalled then the use of Kryptonite in the lab, when he was exposed to weaken his flesh enough to draw samples. She hadn't reacted then. "Did something happen to you?" 

There was no hiding the tears from such a direct question. She could only nod in response and cover her face, praying for the strength to give up her secret. 

Clark gently pulled her hands away from her face and held them in his in an effort to ease her anguish. He was still regretful about how things had gone between them in Metropolis, and felt he owed her some small measure of comfort. "Can you tell me what happened?" 

She wanted to tell him, she needed to, the flood of tears still thundering in her head begged her to release the pressure, but she just couldn't bring any words to adequately meet the truth. She shook her head and sobbed. 

"Marin," Clark implored, sympathetically stroking his thumb over the back of her trembling hand. "Marin, whatever it is, you can tell me. It's something I need to know, isn't it? This is the reason you're here?" 

The tears flowed freshly as she nodded. 

"Then just tell me." 

Marin closed her eyes and took liberal use of the expectant pause before she swallowed heavily and painstakingly spoke. She kept her eyes closed and barely gave voice to the words. "I'm carrying your child." 

The Kent house froze and fell silent. 


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was Chloe who made the first sound, emitting a choking gasp. With it, the frozen silence that had descended over the room began to melt away in the heat of blazing assumptions. 

But the stillness remained, and no words came. Nobody spoke, but Marin could hear their minds spinning inferences and conjecture, and she could read all their faces without looking at them. There was no need. And her gaze was fixed on Clark. 

When Chloe had broken the silence, he suddenly breathed again and fell back from his knees. Sitting on the floor, he stared up at Marin unblinkingly, unable to register any feasible reasoning. His expression was wrenching, mystified, disbelieving, as she knew it would be. A man who had done something to risk this situation often reacted with such incredulity. But Clark hadn't made that risk. 

At first he thought Marin must be insane, or that she'd concocted a lie, but for what reason? His head was a hurricane, and amidst the thrashing onslaught of debris he couldn't extract a coherent response. The only word that made any sense to him was "impossible," and unlike the thousands of unwilling fathers who'd uttered the same word in the face of the same confession, it really was. 

Almost. 

Seized by confusion, anger, doubt, frustration, and fear, Clark rose to his feet. "Excuse me," he muttered starkly and ambled out the front door. Part of him wanted to scream at Marin, ask her how she dared to say such a thing, but another part of him was racked with almost out of reach questions that he couldn't bring himself to ask. 

Marin's face dropped into her hands as she finally gave herself over to the sobs that had been wringing her heart since she'd arrived. She hadn't expected any better - truthfully she expected worse - but it didn't help to abate the strangling pain she felt now. 

Chloe watched the newcomer in vacant awe, concurrently intrigued and gutted by the revelation. She couldn't yet gauge her reaction, but Clark's was apparent, and for lack of her own understanding she went to follow him. 

Martha couldn't fathom the circumstance that would render an occasion like this. Not with her son. Not when - by his own admission - his heartstrings were still entangled with Lana Lang. Not when he still so deeply feared himself. But the girl who was doubled over in agony on the sofa showed only truth behind her tears, and one clear thought rang through Martha's mind. _He didn't deny it_. 

"I… um… I'll go make up the guest bed," she said, not knowing what else to do, and trying to push from her mind the image of her son in Marin's bed. She found herself standing upstairs with a stack of neatly folded sheets in her arms, and as she let her gaze fall to the bare mattress, tears washed over her as well. The sheets tumbled to a heap on the floor, and Martha sank onto the bed. It wasn't a mother's disappointment she felt so much, as it was a mother's fear. And she had more to fear in this situation than most mothers. 

. . .

Only Jonathan Kent remained. He was a reactive man, especially where his family was concerned. When someone or something threatened it, disrupted it, or challenged its strength, he would do whatever was necessary to preserve it. 

But this time, he couldn't _do_ anything. 

Marin Blake was just a girl. Whatever the mistake she and Clark had made - and Jonathan would make sure they shared the consequences for it - right now, she was just a girl, alone, frightened, and aware of Clark's secret. Isolated from the world by what she knew and what grew inside her. She wasn't a threat to his family. 

She was now a part of it. 

Jonathan's first impulse was to disbelieve her words, but while he was suspended in the scathing silence that fell after she uttered them, he knew that they were true. They were too weighty and raw to say if they weren't. When he'd first heard those words - _I'm carrying your child_ - directed at his son, he'd felt an immediate surge of parental anger and the impulse to ground Clark for eternity and throw Marin onto the stoop, showering her with accusations of ruining Clark's life. 

But that was no solution. 

He couldn't say he wasn't shocked or disappointed, but he'd spent so many years trying to teach Clark that he couldn't undo things, that he couldn't take back his own actions or anybody else's. Clark often fell victim to consuming guilt, and the only way to lighten it was to remind him that all that mattered now was what he did in the future. He couldn't change the past. 

It was that mantra that Jonathan repeated to himself now, fighting his natural instinct to explode with truly righteous indignation. Nothing he could say or do would erase the situation. All that mattered now was how they all - as a family - handled it. He glanced out the window to see Clark pacing the yard with his hands in his hair, Chloe observing from a short distance. 

Marin perceived Jonathan's reflective silence as stony and disapproving, and in the long, noiseless interval that followed Martha's exit she realized he must be waiting for her to speak. Wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands, she stood, then demurely laced her fingers together and studied the coffee table. She tried to look up to see if Jonathan's expression was as scary as his silence, but she could see little through her tears. 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kent,"' she offered brokenly. 

So shattered were her words, so wounded and scared, that something new was awakened in Jonathan. He sensed that there was something deeper, that this was not merely the fallout of a weekend tryst. Marin Blake had endured something - something inconceivable. He could see it pulling on her, tying her down and leaving her fatigued and hopeless. He noted the darkness under her eyes, the pallor in her face. Something had tortured her from the inside out. The effort to come to them and make her confession had to have been monumental. 

Marin's heart leapt about her chest at Jonathan's continued silence, and she was certain that he was passing bitter judgments on her. He was fiercely protective of Clark, she knew. He must see her as a harlot, a sly city girl who'd lured his young son into some debauched rendezvous. She struggled for breath, let alone the words to offer her explanation, though it was more horrible than what they all supposed. She still couldn't look up. 

She was about to try to speak again when an arm came to rest across her shoulders, and she was pulled into the embrace of Clark's father. She didn't understand the gesture, but her soul needed it, and she sank against him in an admission of defeat. Her deprivation had been so complete, rejected as she felt she was by everything in her own life. Now here she was, intruding on somebody else's existence, and for the first time in recent memory she felt safe, accepted, like everything she'd been and done before didn't matter. Jonathan held her tenderly, protecting her from her own apprehensions. Marin had feared him as judge, jury, and executioner. He was none of those things. 

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Kent," Marin whimpered again. 

"I know," he said warmly, his voice lined with gentle strength. "But we'll all handle this together." 

In Metropolis, Clark had asked her what made him worth the sacrifice she was willing to make. She hadn't been able to answer him then, but now she could. Now that she'd stood in the bracing strength of Jonathan Kent, she knew exactly why Clark was worth anything. 

. . .

Clark was pacing the yard, sporadically grimacing or swiping at some unseen foe. The harder he tried to make sense of it, the more nonsensical it became. 

Chloe had observed him in silence until he finally broke his stride and sank down in the dusty drive, resting his arms on his knees. She padded over delicately and sat opposite him, legs folded under her and her chin resting on her enlaced hands. There she waited, until Clark noticed her. 

When as last Clark looked up into Chloe's open and expectant face, his own visage crumbled. "Chloe…" he whispered. "Chloe, this is all a _mistake_." He emphasized the last word as if there were no other possibility. There _was_ no other possibility, short of madness. But the madness of whom? 

"She reacted to the Kryptonite," Chloe reminded him. 

Chloe's measured, emotionless repose was troubling to Clark. He had just begun to think that there might actually be something between them, especially after all that they'd shared in the last twelve hours. He knew what her feelings for him had always been, and often laid awake at night reflecting bitterly on how ineptly he explained himself to her. There were so many occasions on which he knew he'd left her heart in pieces - he could see it in her eyes, in the way she smiled far too brightly, the way she'd toss her head nonchalantly along with a sardonic joke. After all this time, he could finally be open with her, finally didn't have to let her walk away hiding tears in order to protect himself. At last, they were both in a place where he could explain. 

Except that he had no explanation to give. 

But she appeared tranquil on the surface, undisturbed by what should have been the most upsetting news of all, if her feelings for him hadn't changed. Chloe may have become a master of denying her heart to herself, but she could never hide it well from those who knew her. Her mask was thin, her tortured glances in Clark's direction never concealed as she thought they were. 

But none of that was there now. She didn't seem to care. "Chloe, it's not what you think," Clark began. 

Chloe smiled placidly. "You don't know what I'm thinking." 

Clark nodded. "Okay, but still, it's not - it's not what you think." 

"Doesn't matter," Chloe shrugged. 

"It doesn't _matter_?" Clark cried. "Are you crazy?" 

After a long, thick pause, the real Chloe began seeping back into those eyes. "Yes!" she wailed. "Yes, I must be crazy! Crazy to _ever_ think that Clark Kent wouldn't keep me guessing. Crazy to think I could ever really know you. Crazy not to think that, no matter how close I got, there would always be somebody closer. Some other secret around the corner! There will always be a Lana, or a Marin or - hell, even Lois!" She bit her lip and tasted the bitter saltiness of the tears that had landed there. "I must be some special kind of idiot, to keep getting sucked in to your vortex." She jumped to her feet, brushing away tears as she ran for the loft, realizing she had no way to get herself home but needing someplace to be alone. 

"Chloe!" Clark called after her before he dashed to cut off her escape. "Chloe, listen to me, there is no Marin, we didn't - " 

"Spare me the excuses, Clark. I'm a big girl, I know how the plumbing works. There's only one way this could have happened." 

"But it _didn't_ happen!" 

"Oh really?" Chloe challenged, standing on tiptoe to get into Clark's face. "Can you look me in the eye and say with absolute honesty that _nothing_ happened with her?" 

Clark hesitated before answering, which made his answer null and void. Chloe knew what hesitation meant. "Oh, nevermind, don't answer - really, I got it. Mental snapshot and everything. Hope you had fun! Just, let's skip the post-vacation slideshow, please." She resumed her course toward the barn. 

"Chloe," Clark tried again, holding her insistently by the arm. "Don't make jokes about this. I can't say that nothing happened with Marin, but even what did happen wasn't really what you think, if you just give me a chance to explain. But we did _not_ sleep together." 

"I didn't get the impression that sleeping was involved," Chloe huffed. 

"Would you cut that out? I'm trying to figure this out too!" 

"Cut it out? I think I've earned the right to give you a derogatory cut or two, Saint Clark. 

"Damn it!" Clark cursed. "Would you stop acting like I did something to you?" 

"Oh, obviously you only did something to Marin - " 

Clark's eyes blazed. "Stop that. Now. I know I've hurt you in the past and you have every right to jump to conclusions, but the Chloe Sullivan I know wouldn't run with a story until she'd verified the facts. The facts are sitting in my living room. Just go ask her - she'll tell you. She has to." 

Chloe looked skeptical, in addition to wounded. "You're telling me, that if I walk in there and ask the girl who just claimed to be pregnant with your child whether or not she's has sex with you, she'll say no?" 

Clark nodded. "I know, it doesn't make any sense, but it's the truth. We just - we have to go back and let Marin tell her story. Just trust me okay?" 

"Trust you?" 

Clark looked down at the ground. "I know it's a tall order, but just think about everything, okay? Think about last night. Think about all the things you know about me, and how long it took to learn them. Has anything about me been easy to explain?" 

Chloe shrugged in concession. "No." 

"So you trust me?" 

"Not as far as I can throw you," Chloe snipped. "But I'm a journalist. I'll listen to her story." 

Clark sighed in relief. "Good. Thank you." 

"But I want to make one thing clear first." 

"Okay." 

"I'm done, after this. Whatever it is I've always been - the sidekick or the kid sister - whatever platonic role I've had, let's just leave it at that. I don't think I can handle more than that, not right now. There are too many secrets, too many complications. I'm not stupid enough to think that this is the last of them, and I'm not exactly gunning to have my heart stepped on again, so let's just table the more-than-friends notion." 

"Okay," Clark said again, trying not to look as deflated as he felt. Chloe's knowledge of his secret had made him feel closer to her. He hadn't been certain yet how deep his feelings ran, but he thought he might want to share more with her than a secret. 

"So, let's go find out how the virgin Marin managed this immaculate conception." 

Clark winced. "Geez, Chloe, try not to be crass, okay? She's really upset already, that's not gonna help." 

"Sorry, I'm coping with inappropriate humor. Best to get it out of my system now." 

They walked up the front steps and through the front door, to find Marin still contained in Jonathan's arms. He looked up at Clark and Chloe as they entered. "It's time we have that talk, Son." 


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Wood grain is terribly engrossing. At least it can be, when one is sitting at a virtual stranger's kitchen table with three pairs of eyes focused in narrow scrutiny, and four sets of ears waiting to hear how a research assistant from Metropolis came to be carrying the child of an as-yet-unspoiled Kansas farm boy. 

It had been six minutes since anyone had made a sound. 

Clark was sitting opposite Marin, with Jonathan and Martha to his left and Chloe to his right. While Marin's eyes almost literally bore a hole in the worn table top, Clark's gaze darted from face to face, sometimes landing on a random knickknack, often resting on the clock. 

Seven minutes of silence. 

Chloe sat with her hands pressed between her knees, feeling uncomfortable and conspicuously out of place. She tried to conjure viable reasons to leave just then, though she wasn't certain she wanted to. She needed the truth, but she feared it. 

Eight minutes. 

Martha's heart was racing. She'd always hoped that Clark would adhere to what might appear to be an old-fashioned ideal. The idea that he hadn't disappointed her, and it stung her, as yet another reminder that he was no longer a child, No longer the little locomotive who would literally tear through the house on a Saturday morning, leaving broken table legs and the occasional splintered cupboard door in his wake. She'd give anything to be replacing a cupboard door just then. 

Nine. 

After calling them all around the table, Jonathan had leaned on his elbows and folded his hands together, issuing an order with pointed glances that they would give Marin a few moments to collect herself. He'd been intently focused on Clark's and Marin's faces, trying to discern what truth they held. Clark looked guilty, nervous, and confused. All things he'd expect to see as a result of such circumstances. Marin, however, held far greater angst than their current understanding of the situation - which was miniscule - seemed to merit. She looked haunted, drained, hollow - her eyes, though downcast, betrayed the depth of her fear. Now, as Jonathan straightened his back and drew his chair closer to the table, he appeared ready to call the meeting to order. 

Ten. 

"Who wants to start?" Jonathan prompted. 

Both Clark and Marin looked up sharply, each toward the other. It was the first time they'd looked at each other directly since Marin had uttered those four fateful words. Marin gave her head a vaguely negative shake. 

"Can you start, please?" she whispered pleadingly, speaking more with her eyes than her voice. 

"Me?" Clark stammered. "Start where? I don't have any idea what happened!" He was trying so hard to speak gently, but internally he was seething with questions unanswered. He was torn between Marin's obvious need for time and solace, and his own need to understand what had happened. He briefly considered throwing the table aside and forcing the truth from her, just as he had back at the lab when she'd injected Lois with EF-19. But he hadn't known her then. 

Now he knew her. Rather, he knew at least enough to know that she was lonely and misunderstood, to which he could relate. So, he fought to suppress his sense of urgency. 

Marin bit her lip and pulled the cuffs of her shirt over her hands. She realized they were chapped, and one knuckle was bleeding. She felt embarrassed by that. It was a strange time to feel embarrassment at all, and from so small a thing. "The experiment," she muttered plainly. 

Clark slumped in his chair, crestfallen. He couldn't fathom an even moderately satisfactory way to rationalize what he and Marin had almost done. The arguments for it felt much thinner now, and parents had a way of making such reasoning look even more ludicrous. Everything had seemed so clear to him those few weeks ago in his moment of almost-weakness - everything had been justified in its own convoluted way. Now however, he could make sense of none of it. Man among wolves, ideals, conventions, reasons of the heart - none of it held any substance when balanced against the weight of a parent's judgment. 

"The experiment?" Jonathan prodded. He didn't like the idea of an "experiment" that could precipitate his son becoming a teenage father. His heroically patient veneer was beginning to crack. 

Clark straightened and cleared his throat. "Yeah… well… it was one of the… um… questions, that came up while I was there. In Metropolis. At the lab." 

Chloe's impatient inquisitiveness kicked in, though somewhat against her will. "Okay, setting established. What's the question in question?" 

Clark shifted uneasily, absently scratching his head behind his left ear before crossing his arms over his chest. "The question was… well, we were - that is I - I was wondering if I could safely - um… be… with somebody." 

"_Be_ with somebody?" Martha squeaked, and Clark felt the sting of cold consequences begin to pool around his ankles as the tissue-thin ice he was skating on melted away. 

"It made sense at the time," Clark murmured meekly. 

Jonathan flexed his fingers and gave Clark a measured authoritative glare. "A lot of things make sense at the time, Clark! Did you even think about the consequences?" 

Clark stood abruptly, knocking his chair backward. "Of course I did, I - " 

"Pick up the chair and sit down," Jonathan interrupted forcefully. 

"Dad, listen to me, I -" 

"First, you listen to me! Pick up the chair and sit down, _now_." Jonathan's reserves of restraint were running low. 

"I'm not a kid," Clark whined sullenly, but nonetheless complied and righted the chair, taking his seat as directed. 

"Good to hear," Jonathan replied with a stark nod and a raised eyebrow. "Because I expect you to behave like an adult now, since you think you're ready to go ahead and make adult decisions." 

Clark let those words fester in an angry silence before he spoke. "Are you finished now?" 

"Am I _finished_ now?" Jonathan repeated. "You want to say that again, Son?" 

"Are you going to let me explain, or are you just going to keep jumping to conclusions?" 

"Great! If you have an explanation, go ahead - let's hear it!" Jonathan challenged, expecting a stream of excuses to follow. 

"Okay, just - no interruptions, just let me get this all out." 

Jonathan and Martha exchanged glances, then nodded their agreement in begrudged unison. 

"Okay," Clark nodded, exhaling heavily. "So… uh… Dr. Ripley brought up this experiment, and…" suddenly Clark's face fell. "Oh no…" 

"What?" Martha, though she wasn't anxious to hear any sordid details, was growing anxious over the drawn out explanation. 

"You don't even know about Ripley yet!" Clark exclaimed. "He's the whole reason everything happened last night, he took everything and - " 

"We'll get back to that, Clark," Jonathan interposed. "Don't change the subject." 

Clark looked agitated. "But Dad, it's really - " 

"I said we'll get back to it! Right now, I'm waiting for this explanation you said we couldn't interrupt." 

"Fine!" Clark huffed and slouched. "Dr. Ripley came up with this idea that - for the sake of science - I should sort of - do a trial run, I guess." 

"A trial run? For the sake of _science_!" Chloe exclaimed. "Are you sure that's not from a Penthouse letter?" 

"Hey, I said no interruptions! This is hard enough!" Clark visually pleaded with Marin. "Can you help me out here?" 

Marin met Clark's eyes and nodded solemnly. "Okay," she said, barely above a whisper. Clark had broken the ice, at least, and he was coming to the end of the part of the story he knew. It was her turn - but then she looked up at the anxious faces all waiting on her, and her resolve retreated a bit. She swallowed past the aching lump in her throat and took in the expressions she saw; Chloe's was pained, perhaps tinged with jealousy, Martha's was saddened and distressed, and Jonathan's was wrought with anger and disappointment, but laced with a thread of rational reason. 

Clark's face was angst-ridden. Marin could imagine the thousand questions that must have overrun his mind the moment she told him she was pregnant. She'd expected him to spit the words back at her, calling her a liar or worse, and she'd told herself that he would have been justified in doing so. There was no way he could have imagined how grave a travesty had been committed against them both. He could have railed against her or thrown her out. He could have screamed at her, fired all of his questions in rapid succession, leaving Chloe and his family to look on in an astonished stupor. He _should_ have yelled, instead of coming to her with a glass of water and concern - that would have been easier. It would have lit a fire under her, heated her enough to make the truth boil over instead of simmering inside her as it was, wearing through her like acid. 

"There was a trial set up," Marin began feebly, "to determine whether or not Clark could safely copulate with a human female." _Good, keep it clinical, you can get through this_. She noted the round of grimaces at the word "copulate" as she paused for another breath. "A series of post-procedural questions and lab tests was developed to follow the actual trial. I completed the report and the subsequent tests on my own." 

"What exactly does that mean?" Martha asked, her distress showing despite her determination to hide it. 

"It means I faked the report, because there was nothing _to_ report." She glanced up at Clark, who nodded to prod her along. "Clark and I never completed the trial. We let the others think we did, so that he wouldn't be pressured with it again." She was surprised at how collected she was beginning to sound, and prayed that she could maintain her composure during the rest of her revelation. 

The faces on both sides of the table bounced their glances from Marin to Clark and back again, like they were a confessional tennis match. 

It was Martha who spoke first. "So… you two didn't…?" 

"No," Clark and Marin answered simultaneously. 

There was silence for half a second before Jonathan emitted a low whistle, Martha smiled and silently mouthed, _Oh, thank God_, and Chloe released her tension in a wild peal of nervous laughter. 

But Clark didn't move. He seemed to become darker in the space of a second, more troubled now that Marin had given her account of events truthfully. She wasn't crazy then, she knew nothing had happened between them. That could only mean that if the reason for her visit was true, it had occurred by unthinkably sinister means. 

After a moment's relief, the others in the room fell victim to Clark's darkness as well, realizing that there was still one very big question left with no answer. 

Then came the eleventh minute of silence. 

And the twelfth. 

This time, Clark's eyes didn't wander. The answer had begun to form in his mind, an inky black cloud that consumed any possible ray of light in the situation. He stared at Marin, and he could see the truth in her eyes. The assumption he was forming was already there in all its terrible reality. There was nothing left to do now, but to ask the question. 

He couldn't ask it. He already knew. But still, it had to be done. Feeling suddenly ill, as if a Kryptonite mist had descended over him, Clark leaned his elbows on the table and let his face fall into his hands. 

Thirteen minutes. 

Clark forced himself to look up again, and when his eyes met Marin's he could see that she knew he understood. But still the question demanded the force of words and a voice behind it. At least one word. 

"How?" 

Marin's face dissolved with tears and defeat as her shoulders fell, leaving her hunched over the table. "Dr. Ripley did it." The words dripped onto the table top like poison. 

Clark relinquished his breath with a guttural sob and let his forehead meet the warm wood grain. 

"He drugged me, he harvested my eggs, he used your samples and made embryos and then he implanted me and then he - he made me forget, and he - " Marin interrupted herself with tears, unable to continue, but the profusion of words that had flowed from her stream of consciousness was more than enough to send the occupants of the Kent house into a tailspin. 

Jonathan had finally reached his limit, and the house was far too small to contain the onslaught of revulsion and rage that surged through him in that moment. After everything that he'd done and tried to do to protect his son, especially in the last few years, he had never imagined anything like this, and there was nothing he felt he could do about it. The slam of the kitchen door and an animalistic cry resounding through the walls from outside were the only sounds to testify to Jonathan's fury until the rumble of the truck's motor was heard as it flew down the drive. 

Clark leapt up from the table hastily, again knocking his chair over. In a fit of rampant hysteria he picked up the offending chair and heaved it through a nearby window, sending dozens of shards glittering down on to the floor. He screamed in rage and picked up handfuls of the broken glass, hurling them against the ground beyond the gaping hole he'd left. When the largest of the fragments had all been tossed out onto the lawn, Clark let himself fall to his knees, crunching against the glass that remained. He bitterly wished he could feel it. 

At last he raised his eyes to the three women at the table, those who had remained at least outwardly steady and stalwart while the Kent men let loose their demons. Three pairs of eyes were on him, Chloe's bewildered, Martha's beside herself with worry, and Marin's bereaved. 

"I'm sorry," he said to all of them, his voice uneven. It was a simple but weighty apology, harboring all the guilt and turmoil over everything he'd ever done or had caused to happen to people he cared about. Even on journeys of self-discovery, he brought wounds to those who helped him, but never to himself. He gripped a knife-like shard of glass that should have sliced his flesh to ribbons, but instead he ground it into dust. 

Chloe saw her friend, her dearest friend, the one whom she felt she'd only just begun to know, and was now just beginning to become somebody else. Her heart ached for him and all the things she fervently wished she could understand and empathize with, but never really would. In some ways he was marked by an isolation as impenetrable as his skin. 

Marin saw the man she'd wronged, the one she and her colleagues had caused to suffer, the one they'd endangered and exposed. She saw his pain, for which she took the blame, and swore to herself that she'd do everything she could to abate it. She'd cost him too much. 

Martha saw her son. Her only son, strong, determined, but shattered. Sitting there by the broken window, like he must have done a dozen times a year when he was a child, looking up at her with sodden eyes and apologizing ambiguously, not knowing exactly what he'd done wrong, but certain that everything was his fault. 


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A number of questions have been asked in the reviews, and it's hard to respond to things here, but most things have been addressed in my thread in the fan fic section on kryptonsite dot com. It's just easier to explain myself there, so if anybody wants to check out the thread it might clear things up, or go ahead and ask your own questions over there. It's just easier to keep up with. Thanks! 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jonathan sped down the open country lane without a destination, only the pain of biting truth snapping at his heels to force him on. He shouldn't have left, he told himself, but the grim horror of Marin's confession had smashed into him with the force of a Mack truck and drove him to his wits end, where he found he either had to hit something or run away until the dust settled. 

But this was so much more than dust. 

He fought the roiling feeling in his stomach, but it soon grew too determined and he forced himself to pull over. He left the driver's side door open as he made for the subtle ditch just off the shoulder, retching until he'd purged himself of any vestige of pride or power. He had neither now. He'd come to the end of himself and gave himself up to his perceived weakness, in that moment believing in little more than his uselessness. 

Blaming himself in his usual fashion, he told himself he'd failed to protect Clark from those who would exploit him, and in doing so nearly crushed another human life. _I shouldn't have let him go. He'd have hated me for a week, but I should have made him stay_. 

Streams of thought began to merge in Jonathan's mind, the events and revelations of the hours past weaving together into a terrifying tapestry - the threads of his family's life unraveled and re-spun into someone else's twisted agenda. It was more than the pregnancy. Dr. Ripley, the siege, Lex - Jonathan didn't need the details he was missing to fit those pieces in to the big picture. 

The Luthors knew everything. 

Spurred by that realization, Jonathan hoisted himself out of the ditch and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Something more bitter than the acidic taste of bile rose in his throat - his hatred for the Luthors. It had ebbed and flowed over the years but never died, and he would not allow a Luthor to bring his family to its knees. 

Sometimes hatred shows a man's weakness, but sometimes it burns just enough to remind a man what he has to fight for. For Jonathan Kent, there was no cause more worthy than his wife and son. 

And no enemy more worth defeating than a Luthor. 

With his purpose renewed and kept alight by the fierceness of his loyalty, he leapt into his truck and sent a spray of gravel into the air as it whipped around and headed back home. 

. . .

The long-denied existence of Luthorcorp Fertilizer Plant No. 3's third level had made it useful for testing conducted under less than compliant standards. It was no longer a secret itself, but it still held a few. 

"I'm not sure I understand why we're here, Mr. Luthor," Philip Sawyer whispered as Lionel led the way through a hidden access door in the rear of the plant, obscured by waste containers. The narrow staircase behind it led directly to Level Three. 

"Of course you don't, I've not yet told you why," Lionel retorted. He was no longer going to give more information than was necessary to an underling. Not after the botched attempt to abduct Clark Kent. "You'll know what I want you to know, when I want you to know. Not before." 

Sawyer nodded glumly. "Yes, sir," he said, though he wasn't certain he wanted to know. He had no illusions about Lionel Luthor - he knew the man dealt underhandedly, often despicably, but it was the first time he himself had been involved in the extinguishing of a human life - three human lives, actually, and he feared there would be more if Lionel's unfettered ambition was let loose. 

"Pay attention now, Sawyer. We can't afford any missteps at this juncture." 

"Yes sir," Sawyer repeated. He was a good yes-man. Lionel found him tedious, but compliant. 

"There's a door at the bottom of the stairs to the left. Everything I need is just beyond it." Lionel descended the metal steps slowly, still recovering from the near-fatal experience of counterfeiting his own death. 

Sawyer ran his eyes over every inch of the concrete cinderblocks to the left of the landing, but saw no sign of a door. "Sir, are you sure this is where the door was?" 

Lionel grunted and nudged the younger man out of his way. "Of course I am. You don't think I'd have my secret vault secured behind an ordinary door, do you?" He turned and knelt before the staircase, pulling out the steel facing of the bottom step to reveal a glowing access panel. He entered a series of numbers, and suddenly an entire three-foot length of the thick wall began to sink away, leaving a two-foot gap to step through. "Hydraulic press," Lionel offered by way of explanation. 

Sawyer followed his employer through the narrow opening and stood aghast at what lay before him. Everything Lionel had ever denied possessing was here, along with things that Sawyer couldn't even try to name. Antiques, rare artifacts, hoarded cash - some of it counterfeit - weapons, computers, Kryptonite, and strangest of all, a wall covered in charts and scraps of paper bearing some kind of foreign symbols. "What is this place?" he queried in wonder. 

"Close your mouth, Sawyer, you look like a child at Disneyland. It's just a vault, one of several, and we have business to attend to." 

"Yes sir," Sawyer replied predictably. 

"Now," Lionel began, setting the bag he'd had strapped to his back on a cold metal table, "we have to formulate our next maneuver." He pulled out the stack of discs from Dr. Ripley and inserted one into the optical drive of the nearest Powerbook. "And thanks to the legacy of the late Dr. Ripley, I know exactly what that will be." 

Sawyer stepped up behind Lionel and looked over his shoulder at the screen. "Is that all?" 

"Is that _all_?" Lionel repeated. "Your penchant for overkill notwithstanding, Sawyer, what more is required - in your _humble_ opinion?" 

"Nothing, sir," Sawyer answered swiftly, shaking his head. 

"Indeed," Lionel gave the man a terse nod, then turned back to the screen. "You don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito, Sawyer." 

"Forgive me, Mr. Luthor, but I wouldn't call Clark Kent a mosquito." 

"Precisely," Lionel said bitingly with a gleam in his eye. "He's never been treated like one. But he's expecting my move now, he anticipates it, thanks to your ineptitude. My tactics must evolve with his expectation - no full-scale invasions this time, just one, small pinprick of an advance." 

"But as soon as the morning news reports your death, his guard will be down, right?" 

"Don't underestimate Clark Kent. He's smarter than you'd expect. That's why the only way to approach him is with a simple, uncomplicated operation. He's less likely to see it coming." 

Sawyer furrowed his brow in confusion. The information on the screen had been about a firearm. "I thought shooting him wouldn't do anything." 

Lionel sneered, as much in annoyance with Sawyer as with glee over his devious plot. He pulled the stack of printed data from his bag and dropped it on Sawyer's lap. "I suggest you study that. I found the account of young Mr. Van McNulty to be of particular interest." 

. . .

Chloe and Marin remained at the table when Martha moved to comfort Clark. 

"Clark, sweetheart, we'll figure this out," she said tearfully, trying to give her son assurance that she didn't feel herself. 

"It's all my fault, I shouldn't have gone to the lab. This would never have happened if I - " At that moment his eyes met Marin's. "Oh God Marin, I'm so sorry." 

Marin shook her head. "It's not your fault, Clark. You can't blame yourself for any of this." 

"She's right, Clark," Martha agreed, and dropped onto one knee, momentarily forgetting the remnants of the window that covered the floor. She cried out involuntarily when a sharp pain pierced her skin, and she stood again to reveal blood seeping through her jeans. 

Clark looked from his mother's bloodied knee into her benevolent face, tears marring its luminous surface. She deserved all the best things that the world could offer her, all the happiness it could afford. He stood and reached out to wipe away a tear that had trailed over her cheek. "See?" he whispered chokingly. "It doesn't matter how - anybody who gets close to me gets hurt in some way." He stepped backward, inadvertently biting into the wall below the window with his heel. _I only bring destruction_. 

Clark nodded, seemingly in silent agreement with himself, then looked at each face in the room in turn, seeing pain in each of them. He didn't yet realize that their pain was largely a reflection of his. Without a word, he exited through the broken window and headed for his loft. 

Martha was transfixed by a sight she'd never seen before. Clark always behaved as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, but she'd never seen him stoop beneath it. He'd always stood tall, even in uncertainty, striking an imposing profile. But now, as he slowly, painstakingly advanced toward his fortress of solitude, his back was bowed under a yoke hung evenly with fear and guilt. 

In the absence of some other productive task with which to occupy her overrun mind, Martha bent to pick up the remaining glass, ignoring the blood dripping from her knee. 

"Let me help you with that," Marin insisted gently, bringing a large bowl from the center of the table to collect the fragments. 

"You should go lie down," Martha said quietly, not looking up from the floor. 

"It's okay, I feel fine, really - let me help." Marin couldn't explain it, but physically, she'd never felt better. 

Martha raised her face to reveal fresh tears streaming over it. "Marin, I'd really rather do this myself, if you don't mind. You go get some rest." 

Marin nodded her assent and advanced up the stairs before she realized she didn't know where she was supposed to go. She tried the nearest door and found herself in Clark's room. Her throat closed and her lungs deflated at the sight of it, with its plaid bedspread and curtains his mother chose, a lava lamp and a rack of CDs, a TV, an American flag tacked above the bed, and a multitude of other testaments to the promise of youth. 

She was certain she'd robbed him of that promise. 

. . .

Chloe had waited awkwardly until she was certain that Martha didn't remember that she was there before she slipped quietly through the kitchen door and took tentative steps toward the barn. Clark obviously wanted to be left alone, which Chloe took to mean that he desperately needed a friend. 

So now she found herself standing in silence at the top of the loft's stairs, her hands absently tugging at the zipper on her jacket while she tried to think of a way to make her presence known. Clark was stretched haphazardly across the couch, one arm on the floor and his face pressed into the cushion. 

"I can hear you, you know," he spoke with muffled words. "Before you even left the house I heard you coming." He turned over and sat up, looking at Chloe almost challengingly. "Are you here to give me some magic words to make it all better?" 

He'd never looked so alone before, not even in the mad solitude in which Chloe had found him in Metropolis after his parents lost their baby. Knowing what she knew now that she didn't know then, she realized he must blame himself for that too. 

Chloe smiled, and felt sick for it. It was one of those painful smiles that jumps into your face when you're too shocked or mortified or hurt to react any other way, an involuntary personal treason, your body behaving in contrast to your orders at the most inappropriate time. She covered her face and shook her head. 

"I don't think there is anything to make it all better." 

Clark huffed and nodded, the same achingly traitorous smile pulling at his mouth. "You know what the really sick part is?" 

"Aside from all of it?" Sensing she'd been right about Clark needing someone to talk to, Chloe crossed the stretch of floor between him and herself and took a seat beside him on the sofa. 

Clark grimaced and clutched his head. "This is crazy, but - " he paused and looked up at the ceiling. "My first thought - actually my first feeling - when she said she was pregnant - I was happy about it. Before I even thought about how or why, for just a second before the words really set in - I was _happy_ to hear it. How messed up is that?" 

Chloe gave his words considerable pause before she answered. "I wouldn't say it's messed up, and I bet if you think about it, you wouldn't either." 

"I've been thinking about it," Clark sighed. 

"And?" 

"And I guess I know why." 

"Why then?" 

Clark exhaled and leaned against the sofa, letting his head fall back. "Because it answers questions, you know - things I've wondered about myself." He stood abruptly and went to the window, leaning out to look up at the sky. "For the last couple of years I've wondered now and then about whether I could ever be a dad, you know? Someday, I mean. Whether it was even possible." He turned around to face Chloe. "Is that weird?" 

"No, of course not," Chloe affirmed and walked over to join him. "And I think you'd be a great dad." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah. You know - someday." 

"Someday is… kinda now." 

"Yeah." There wasn't much to be said to lighten that. 

"And the other thing - " Clark began. 

"What other thing?" 

"It's a little selfish." 

"Spit it out." 

"It's just that - well, you know I love my parents, they're the best family I could ask for, but -" 

"But what?" 

"But… well just imagine not having a single blood relative. Not one. Even if I were adopted under normal circumstances, just a normal kid, there'd be somebody out there that shares my blood. I guess… you know, this baby is the only person on Earth that I'm actually related to." Clark looked sideways at Chloe, as if he expected her to scoff at him. 

"That isn't selfish, Clark. It's natural to want to belong, we all do that." 

"So… you don't think this is weird?" 

"What, that my best friend is an alien and a mad scientist stole his sperm to make an intergalactic baby? What's weird about that?" For what felt like the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours, Chloe felt her attempt at levity fall flat. "I'm sorry, bad joke." 

Clark smiled at her. "It's okay. It's an insane situation." 

"Yeah," Chloe nodded and looked up at Clark. She'd never thought of him as fragile, but he really was. There were times she'd have gone so far as to say he was heartless, moments that she'd thought were unforgivable - but she always forgave him. And now she understood why all of those things happened. He was vulnerable in ways that nobody could empathize with. Chloe raised herself up on the tips of her toes and tried to wrap her arms consolingly around his neck. "You know, it would be so much easier to give you a comforting hug if you were a foot shorter." 

Clark laughed - a true, heartfelt laugh - and slid to the floor. 

"There's that smile I was looking for!" Chloe exclaimed and settled beside him. "And this is a much better hugging height." 

Clark pulled Chloe against him and gratefully accepted her embrace. "Thank you, Chloe." 

"For what?" 

"Just - for everything. For being who you are, for being here now. For knowing I need to talk to someone, even though I didn't." 

Chloe smiled. "That's what friends are for, right?" She was surprised to find that she uttered that phrase sincerely, without a trace of a subtext. Days earlier she would have had to push her breath past the lump of resentment in her throat in order to choke the word "friends," but now it didn't feel like something she'd have to settle for. "There's somebody else you need to talk to though." She looked up at Clark pointedly. 

"Marin," he spoke with a nod. 

"Marin." Chloe repeated. "Do you know what you're gonna do?" 

Clark shook his head. "No idea. I still have to figure out what to do about Lionel. And Lex - I don't know what to do about any of it." 

"But you're going to go talk to her, right?" 

Clark looked down at Chloe, puzzled. "Are you worried about her?" 

"You're not?" 

"Of course I am, it's my fault she's in this mess." 

"Clark, we're not going to play the "all the ills of the world are on my shoulders" game again. _You_ did not drug her or implant her, you were taken advantage of just as much as she was. Why do you always see somebody else's amoral ambitions as being your fault?" 

"Because me being who I am is what give people those ambitions." 

"No, you being who you are is what saves people from the Jekylls when they turns into Hydes. You can't control the decisions people make, and you can't control the outcomes either. But you've done more than anybody ever asked you to do to protect people in this town, and I'm pretty sure that's only the beginning of it. You just have to remember that you don't cause the problems, and if you can't prevent every single disaster it doesn't mean you've failed. You're only one man, super or not." 


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

Author's Note: I didn't mean to imply that I wanted to restrict reviewing here - I quite like it, if I must be honest - I was just saying that if you have a question, it's easier to discuss on K-site. Review away! 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

"I can't tell you anything you don't already know," Lois insisted as Lex stood impassively at the door of the exam room. "I wasn't at the Kents' for very long before you and your guerillas showed up." 

"What were you doing there in the first place? It was a bit early for a social call." 

"I was looking for Chloe, if you must know, and I've had enough of this interrogation. You can leave now, I think you know the way out." 

Lex smiled indifferently. "Not quite the gracious hostess, are you, Miss Lane?" 

"Oh, I'm _sorry_, your Grace," Lois gushed with an exaggerated curtsy. "Please accept my most humble apologies as I slam the door behind you." 

"It has a tension spring, you can't slam it." 

"Damn." 

"Why the hostility? I just met you and I took it upon myself to make sure you hadn't suffered brain damage - although now I'm thinking that's a possibility. I'm only here for answers. I think I missed the part where I grievously wronged you." 

"Your father tried to _murder_ my cousin and my uncle. I guess I'm operating under the assumption that the "like father, like son" adage had to come from somewhere." 

Lex's stoic guise dissolved without warning. "_I_ saved their _lives_!" he shouted, uncharacteristically unglued. "It's _my_ father who is dead now, and I want you to help me find out why." 

Lois shook her head. "Oh, don't expect me to buy the bereaved son act. Your father was a cold fish at best, and nobody would know that better than you. I've known you all of sixty minutes and I can see that. Anyway, what could Clark possibly have to do with a helicopter explosion?" 

Lex quickly regained his composure and spoke concisely. "As I said, things happen around Clark. He's unaccounted for at the time of the explosion as of yet, and he had motive." 

Lois was beginning to lose the little patience she ordinarily reserved for spectacularly slow elderly people walking ridiculously tiny dogs across city streets. "And how do I fit in to this picture? If I don't get a straight answer this time I swear I'll have security escort you out." 

Lex couldn't resist smiling at the forceful way she took command of the space, as if it were hers to control. "You have questions about Clark, correct?" 

Lois shrugged. "What makes you think that? And that was not a straight answer, by the way." 

"You've met Clark, right?" 

"Well, according to you I'm the conduit to answers about him, so I must have. And again, a cryptic question does not a straight answer make." 

"If you've met him, you have questions. In fact, I'd wager that's the real reason you're here." 

"Care to place money on that bet? I could use a new pair of boots." 

"Clark tends to leave a first impression that plants a few seeds of curiosity. I doubt that a young woman as clever as you would have missed that." 

"Are you patronizing me?" Lois looked indignant, arms crossed over her chest in a defiant stance. 

"Not in the least." 

Lois hesitated. "What is it you want me to do?" 

"I want you to come with me back to the farm." 

. . .

Clark and Chloe were exiting the barn just as Jonathan pulled up, his truck screeching to a halt. 

"Dad!" Clark called, jogging over to meet his father with Chloe close behind him. 

"It was all the Luthors, wasn't it?" Jonathan bellowed as he stepped down from the truck. "They were probably behind it all from the beginning - this whole thing with Ripley and the baby - they had him in their back pocket, didn't they?" When he reached Clark he embraced him firmly, more for his own support that for his son's. "I should never have let this happen." 

Clark pulled back and shook his head at his father. "Whoa, Dad, step back - you didn't let this happen! You can't blame yourself, it was me who decided to go, and it was Ripley who went to Lionel - " 

"Was Lionel behind this from the beginning? Do you know?" Jonathan interposed. 

"I - I don't think so. I don't know though. I think if he'd had any kind of association with Lionel before this happened, Dr. Swann would have found out about it. Dr. Crosby made it sound like he just took off. I'm honestly not sure though." 

Jonathan stood silently for a moment, taking in the sights of his mangled home in the light of the morning sun. His fields were trampled, his barn had a new open-air ceiling, and he'd just filled his storm cellar with all the Kryptonite that had been planted in the house until he could find a better way to get rid of it. His eyes traveled over the house - the multi-generational Kent family home. The keeper of secrets. 

"We need to talk to this Dr. Crosby and find out everything that's going on. But there's one thing I'm sure about." Jonathan's gaze was still fixed on the house, as if he too were able to look through its walls. 

"What?" Clark asked in unison with Chloe. 

"If this Ripley character was working for Lionel, then he at least knows about the baby. And I'm guessing it's a safe bet he'll be coming after it." 

Clark looked as if he'd been punched in the gut hard enough to actually feel it. 

"Are you okay, Clark?" Chloe prompted with concern. Jonathan's speculation would do nothing to calm the confused storm that already raged inside her friend. 

"I just - I hadn't even thought of that." He ran a hand through his hair and walked over to the porch, taking a seat on the steps. "This is all… it's just way too much, way too fast." He braced his neck with his hands. 

Chloe glanced from Clark to Jonathan, whose own downtrodden countenance mirrored his son's. Clark pulled at an exceptionally long blade of grass next to the bottom step, bringing it up by the root, then twisting it and tearing it into tiny shreds while he stared vacantly ahead. Jonathan took a seat next to Clark. The two sat in silence until Chloe spoke. 

"Why should Lionel be interested in the baby?" 

Jonathan looked up, squinting at Chloe in the light of the morning sun. "Why should Lionel be interested in Clark? Or the Kawatche caves? Why has he been stockpiling Kryptonite? Trust me, if he knows about this baby - that is if he didn't order this whole thing himself - he's a lot more than interested." 

"You know what?" Clark interjected without looking up from his shredded blade of grass. "I'm really, really tired." 

Before anyone could respond, they all froze at the sound of tires crunching the gravel in the driveway. Chloe spun around. "It's my dad!" She turned back to Clark. "You didn't hear him coming?" 

"I wasn't listening for inbound traffic, sorry," Clark scoffed. 

Chloe faced the driveway again as Gabe Sullivan brought his car to an angry stop. "If he were any more irate, _I_ could have heard him coming." She grimaced and then adopted her most innocent expression as her father slammed the car door and stalked toward her. "Morning, Dad!" she called brightly, as if she had no idea why he might be upset. 

"Do you have any idea what's been going through my mind all night?" Gabe cried. 

"Dad, we were just - " 

"Don't give me any 'we were just' or 'nothing happened,' excuses young lady! You are _grounded_!" Gabe was livid, his face reddening with each word. 

"Grounded!" Chloe shouted. "I've never been grounded! Dad, I can - " 

Gabe wheeled and turned on Jonathan. "And I hope you gave that boy of yours a talking to as well - " 

"Now, just a minute, Gabe," Jonathan interrupted, holding up a pacifying hand. "I'd be the first person to give that talk if there was a reason to, but - " 

"Are you telling me that these two slept together and there's no reason for me to be upset?" 

"No, Dad, you have a right to be upset, I should have called, but we didn't 'sleep together,' we didn't even go to sleep - " 

"Oh, well that's _great_!" Gabe grabbed Chloe by the arm. "We're leaving. Now." 

"No, Dad, what I meant was… was…" _Maybe my powers of snark and wit are coffee-dependent._

"Cows!" Clark shouted and rose from the steps, speaking for the first time since Gabe had arrived. 

Jonathan, Gabe, and Chloe turned to him and merely blinked in response. 

Clark cleared his throat. "We had a bit of a problem with the cows last night - there was sort of a stampede." Clark fervently hoped that Gabe, still being something of a city slicker despite his years in Smallville, would buy the lie. 

Gabe looked around at the trampled fields and crushed fences. "It looks that way," he agreed, but with his jaw still set in a hard line. "That doesn't explain why my daughter, who has just spent three months in hiding for fear of her life, stayed out all night and didn't call me." 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Sullivan, she was helping with the cows and we just lost track of time. It took all night, we just finished about ten minutes ago." 

Gabe looked dubious. "_Chloe_ was helping you with cows?" 

Clark smiled, both at Gabe's disbelief and the expression of horror on Chloe's face at the thought of actually helping with farm work. "Yeah, she's quite a wrangler when she needs to be." 

"Yeah!" Chloe piped up. "That's what I did! I wrangled." _I'll have to find out exactly what "wrangling" is._

"Do you even keep cows here?" 

"Not right here, no," Jonathan jumped in. "They're pastured a little way off. That's why it was such a big problem." 

Gabe assessed his daughter's appearance - her clothes dirty and tattered, bits of hay and corn husks clinging to her hair, her face streaked with dust. Definitely not the appearance she'd have if she'd been exerting herself the way he'd feared. Clark and Jonathan were in somewhat less grimy variations of disarray. He was flooded with feelings of embarrassment and relief. 

"I'm sorry about the accusations, I guess I just panicked." He hugged Chloe tightly, not minding the remains of Minnesota cornfield that still adorned her. "But if you ever scare me like that again, you _will_ be grounded!" Chloe chuckled, plainly glad to be off the hook, and Gabe looked up at the front door. "Where's Lois?" he asked abruptly. "Is she in the house?" 

"Uh, Lois?" Clark responded uncertainly. "She left a while ago. Said her shoes weren't designed for following in a cow's footsteps." Despite the gravity of the situation, he found himself smiling, _She probably would say that._

"I wonder why I haven't heard from her. It's been hours since I talked to her, when she told me Chloe was here." He turned to face his daughter. "I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and show you that I trust you, give you a chance to come home." 

"So, you don't trust me?" Chloe pouted. 

"Don't push it, Chloe, you're still in trouble for not calling. Is it too much to ask that my daughter let me know where she is, so I don't have to worry that her life is being threatened again?" 

"I'm sorry Dad. I'll remember next time." 

"Yes, you will. Now let's go home. You must be exhausted." 

Chloe smiled, silently thanking Clark for sparing her too grave a punishment, and honestly impressed that he'd managed to convince her father that she'd really done farm chores. _Although the fact that I look like I've been in a stampede probably helped._ "I am exhausted. 'Bye Clark, I'll see you later. 'Bye Mr. Kent. Glad I could help with the cows, but next time - I think I'll pass." 

Jonathan and Clark stood side by side, watching the Sullivans as they retreated down the lane. 

"You're getting to be a good liar, Clark," Jonathan commented. 

"Yeah," Clark replied admittedly, sensing that his father's tone carried no pride. "I wish I didn't have to be." 

Jonathan nodded. "So do I, son." He gave Clark a supportive hand on his shoulder. "So do I." 


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

When Chloe and her father were out of sight, Jonathan and Clark hurriedly circled the yard, trying to at least make it appear that the damage had been caused by hooves, not the treads of massive tires. After resorting to a few makeshift solutions to hold the more vital fences until they could be better dealt with, Clark sheepishly helped his father board up the window he'd shattered. 

Now, lying on his bed, freshly showered and fighting the heaviness that tugged at his eyelids, Clark was alone with his thoughts. 

They were disquieting companions. 

Deciding that any diversion would be preferable to pondering over the wreckage of the day - which was substantial, as the day had only progressed as far as lunch - he broke his usual unspoken rule and listened to the other people in the house - those who had not gone to sleep as they said they would after ordering him to do so. 

His parents were discussing the situation in hushed tones. On any other day, it might have been amusing, the way they often forgot that sending Clark out the room didn't mean he was out of earshot. Their conversation was more tears and hushes than words though, and he couldn't bear to listen for long. 

Marin must have fallen asleep. Her breathing was calm, even, and peaceful. It had a gentle, steady rhythm - it sounded like life, which Clark found reassuring. 

Lulled by the beat of a heart in another room, Clark finally went to sleep. 

. . .

Clark awoke with a start when he heard the slam of a car door, instantly thankful to the intrusion on his dream, wherein something was slipping away from him, something he'd wanted, but couldn't keep. He couldn't identify the loss, only the pain of letting it go. 

He heard the front door open, followed by cordial voices - the ones people adopt when barely-casual acquaintances drop by. Curiosity piqued, Clark listened intently as he rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. _Dr. Crosby is here_? 

Clark clamored down the stairs, arriving on the landing just in time to hear his mother say "There he is now." 

"Hello, Clark," Dr. Crosby greeted as Jonathan closed the door behind her. 

"Hi, Dr. Crosby," he answered with a raised eyebrow, offering to take the box she held. 

"I know you're wondering why I'm here." She was as composed as ever. 

Clark nodded as he set the box on the table, but Dr. Crosby spoke again before he could answer her. 

"Where is Marin?" 

"She's asleep," Martha replied. "Just like you're supposed to be," she continued, turning to her son, and then again addressing Dr. Crosby. "He's only slept two hours since all of this started." 

"She's up," Clark corrected, hearing light footsteps on the floor above. 

"Good, I have some news that you both need to hear. But first, Clark, would you please help me unload the car?" 

Clark glanced outside the conventional way - through a window. "Looks like a full load of really bad news." 

"It's everything from the Metropolis lab. Everything the Foundation has that relates to you." 

"Dr. Crosby?" Marin's voice slipped in to the conversation from where she'd appeared almost silently (to everyone but Clark) at the foot of the stairs. "I thought I heard your voice." 

"Clark, let's get that car unloaded," Jonathan directed, clapping his son on the shoulder as opened the front door. 

As there was nobody present from whom Clark had to hide his abilities, he used them to make quick work of unloading the car, and before long the whole group was again seated at the table, this time with Dr. Crosby at the head and a series of boxes laid before them. 

Dr. Crosby found herself unexpectedly tongue-tied in the face of her predicament. She'd rarely been the type to be bound by emotions, but for the second time in less than a day she struggled with how to deliver such a heavy revelation. "I suppose I'll begin with what you already know," she commenced. "Marin is carrying a child resulting from an externally germinated embryo. Has she been able to tell you how this happened?" 

"Uh… very briefly," Clark answered. 

"It isn't necessary to go into much detail of the procedure, I think you can surmise that for yourselves if you must. The real news is how the embryo was created, which, if you don't mind my saying so, is quite extraordinary, despite the circumstances." She paused and was met with only silence, so she took a breath and moved on. "Dr. Ripley took most of his end-stage research with him, meaning the reports that stated his findings. What we've uncovered so far is largely his notes of the research as it progressed, but the limited study of these that we've managed to conduct so far has led us to some startling conclusions. 

"As you know, Clark gave us a blood sample with which to begin our work nearly eight months ago. Analyzing a DNA sequence should take years to the degree that Ripley has taken it, but he somehow managed to make unprecedented discoveries - things as yet unaccomplished with human DNA - in only a few months." 

"And what exactly did he discover?" interposed Jonathan, who was growing impatient with the doctor's diatribe despite his dread of the news. 

"A very great deal, as it turns out. But in regard to the embryo, I must back up a little. Before we began this program for Clark, we had been developing some pharmaceuticals, one of which was a general anasthetic, given the working label 'EF-01' in its earliest formulation. It has been refined a number of times, into what we now have, EF-19. Has Clark informed you of its effects?" 

Jonathan and Martha nodded mutely. 

"Good. Now, in its earlier forms, its effects were more severe, more prolonged. The very first test subjects had to undergo extensive memory regression therapy, which was regrettably unsuccessful and left them with no memory of anywhere from one to three of the preceding months. We were only testing it as an anesthetic then, the side effects with memory were unexpected. But apparently Ripley found he could use them to his advantage. In a later trial, Marin was one of the test subjects - really only by default when a volunteer dropped out and she insisted for the sake of the trial's integrity. Ripley conducted the trial and supervised the subjects' recovery. It was then that he harvested her eggs." 

All eyes turned sympathetically to Marin, who fixed her gaze once again on the wood grain of the table top. 

"He developed a method to mature the eggs externally, which is why he was able to procure viable eggs without Marin being on a hormone protocol. This was just before we began studying Clark in depth - only Ripley had been on the project at that point, and he had already made a discovery about the blood. That was why he stole the eggs - he needed time to manipulate them." 

"What discovery?" Clark asked. 

"Manipulate them how?" Marin followed. "Just the maturing?" 

Dr. Crosby didn't answer them directly. She'd been rehearsing this monologue since she'd left Metropolis, and found the easiest way to get it all out was not to stray from her script. "You see, traditional fertilization wasn't possible, because the cell structures of a human ovum were unable to communicate with Clark's DNA, to put it in simple terms. Over the past several months, Ripley has been using extractions from Clark's blood to alter the genetic makeup of Marin's eggs. Otherwise, they wouldn't understand that they'd been fertilized, and cell division would never occur." 

"I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not following, but I don't understand what that means." Jonathan said. 

Dr. Crosby took a deep breath. It was time to drop the bomb. "It has two pretty drastic implications. The first, according to Ripley's findings as far as we can tell, is that Clark has ninety-eight chromosomes in forty-six pairs." 

Marin gasped. "But then… how?" 

Something from biology class clicked in Clark's mind. "Humans have forty-six chromosomes in twenty-three pairs, right?" 

"Exactly," Dr. Crosby nodded. "Genetic incompatibility." 

Clark quietly digested that information, and now, all eyes were on him. He looked up and the first face he saw was his mother's, a single tear trailing over her cheek. He turned to Dr. Crosby. "So… I can't…?" 

"Father a child, no," Dr. Crosby answered quietly. 

They were all silent again. Silence was becoming a recurrent affliction at the Kents' kitchen table. 

"Clark?" Martha prodded. 

"What?" Clark looked up sharply, forcing his dejected expression away. "I'm fine. No big deal. Dr. Crosby, please continue." 

"We can take a break, Clark, if you need to," Dr. Crosby assured. She was no longer concerned with pressing through her monologue. She was almost at the part that she dreaded most. 

"No, let's get this over with." 

"Okay. I'm going to skip ahead a bit, and then I'll come back to the embryo. Dr. Ripley, as I said, accomplished a staggering feat in the analyzing of your blood, and it appears that he was able to take the known process of chromosome dye banding - which is one way that types of chromosomes can be categorized - a few steps further, and was actually able to determine what each of them is responsible for. We're missing a great deal of his research here, so we don't know how he was able to do this, but his notes indicate that it was a success. 

"Concurrently, he postulated that, even if he were actually able to create this embryo, he had doubts as to whether Marin could be able to carry the child to term. He feared that she wouldn't be strong enough, even though the child wouldn't be exposed to direct sunlight, he decided to prepare for the possibility that it may absorb some solar energy through her, becoming too strong in utero and putting her in jeopardy. Having isolated your genes, he used the ones that he determined give you your strength invulnerability, and derived something from them - a self-replicating genetic mutation that he called GM093. We have virtually no notation on this, other than it needed to be administered only once, and would independently alter the subject's genetic makeup. We assume he gave it to Marin at some point, though we have no documentation of this." 

Dr. Crosby turned to address Marin directly. "He worried that there might be a mild side effect in relation to the sun - since your DNA was modified to make you absorb solar energy and thereby make you stronger, he postulated that your human skin wouldn't hold up as well, and prolonged exposure to the sun might cause it to crack and bleed, beginning at the extremeties." 

Marin looked down at her hands, which were indeed still cracked as she'd noticed before. "Is that serious?" She had a thousand other questions in the light of this news, but that one was the easiest to ask. 

"Nothing a strong sun block and some shade won't prevent." 

Marin nodded. "Okay." She waited, expecting someone else to speak, but realized that all eyes had once again turned back to her. "So… what, Ripley made me into some kind of quasi-Kryptonian?" 

Dr. Crosby nodded. "It appears he was trying to, in some ways. But it wasn't enough." 

"What do you mean?" 

"He couldn't fertilize the egg as it was, so he modified it. But he still couldn't combine your genetic material with Clark's. So he replaced it." 

"He _replaced_ it?" Marin squeaked. 

"Yes, he removed the egg's nucleus and replaced it with the nucleus of one of Clark's cells." 

Marin's face fell. "So, it isn't a baby at all." 

Dr. Ripley shook her head. "Not exactly, no." 

"What is it then?" Jonathan and Martha both queried. 

"It's a clone," Clark answered before Dr. Crosby could. "Isn't it?" His quiet disappointment was quickly turning to anger. "Isn't that what it is?" 

Dr. Crosby hesitated for a moment before she answered. "…Yes… but there's something else." 

"Of _course_ there's something else!" Clark cried. "There's always something else! What is it this time?" 

Time for that bomb to explode. Dr. Crosby closed her eyes. "He didn't create just one embryo." 

Clark could only shake his head. "How many?" 

"The rest are in cryopreservation, I don't know where." 

"_How many_?" 

"There are six more." 


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight

Author's Note: I just wanted to thank Issue42 and Doranwen for their encouraging comments after that particularly scathing review. Thanks so much you two!

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Four people sat at the kitchen table, blinking at an empty chair. Clark had speedily vacated it without warning at the news that, in addition to the infant clone that Marin carried, there were six others, whereabouts unknown.

Jonathan, Martha, Marin and Dr. Crosby glanced at one another, each silently wondering where Clark had sped off to, and if he intended to return. After a long, uncomfortable minute, the clatter of wood against wood coming from the direction of the barn resounded with the answer.

Jonathan ventured out alone to investigate the sound and the angst that it implied. He found Clark on the roof of the barn, using his thumb to drive thick nails through the boards he'd brought up to repair the hole he'd left. "You can use a hammer, Clark," Jonathan called, trying to sound congenial and hoping that his son would give him some way to penetrate his justified temper.

"I'd rather use my fist, but I've made enough holes in the roof," Clark bit tersely, not moving his eyes from his task.

Jonathan looked up at his son, balancing effortlessly on the incline and pushing nails through the weathered boards like they were thumbtacks. Clark might have had an extraordinary means of employing it, but his father had practically invented the tactic. Avoidance by occupation. "Clark, come back down here, you don't have to do that now."

"It's not gonna fix itself, Dad." The strain in his voice was apparent.

"It can wait."

"No, it can't wait, it's a six-foot hole in the roof of the barn, and one of the rafters is split. Gotta fix it before that beam gives."

Jonathan walked into the barn and regarded his son's handiwork. "Looks like you've already reinforced the beam pretty well. We can fix the rest later."

"No, we won't fix it, I will fix it. I'm the one who wrecked it in the first place, just like everything else."

Paydirt. That was the foothold Jonathan had been feeling for. "You can't blame yourself for any of this, Son."

Clark was suddenly no longer visible through the hole in the roof, and Jonathan turned to find him walking into the barn. "Of course I can," he retorted flippantly. "You're always saying how important it is to take responsibility - well, I'm responsible for all of this."

Jonathan approached Clark and put both hands on his shoulders. "Clark, listen to me. I know what it's like to blame yourself for everything. It's hard to see people suffer for any reason, especially if it had anything to do with you, but you did not cause anything that happened."

Clark didn't protest. He merely nodded and kept his eyes low.

"That's not really what this is about, is it?" Jonathan guessed.

Clark shrugged and moved away, turning his back to his father to hide his sadness. "No, it is."

"But not just that."

Clark shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's okay, Clark," Jonathan prodded, stepping closer. "You can talk about it."

Clark closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the railing that led to the loft. "I don't want to."

"You sure?"

"No," Clark sighed, then scrambled to recover. "Yes - I mean yes."

"Okay then," Jonathan said, but didn't retreat.

Clark turned to face him. "Are you waiting for something?"

"I am."

"What?"

"For you to realize that you do want to talk about it." Jonathan was unaccustomed to being shut out when his son was upset.

Clark was beginning to look frustrated. "I said I don't want to talk about it! Why are you pushing this?"

Jonathan's impatience was beginning to outweigh his restraint. "Because I'm not going to let you sit out here and sulk while the rest of us are worrying about whether you're okay."

"Wow, sorry to inconvenience you," Clark spat, but instantly regretted it. His sense of pride, however, was less forthcoming.

"You'd better keep that tone in check with me, Son!"

The word "son" struck Clark poignantly. "Dad, I just found out that I can't ever be a father! Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Silence opened up and swallowed them both while Jonathan fumbled for a response. "Yes, I do," he managed meekly.

Clark mentally backpedaled and begged time to let him take back that remark. "Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't mean - "

"No, I know," Jonathan cut him off, waving a dismissive hand more casually than his expression implied. He turned to head back to the house, and Clark slumped against the railing. "Clark," he said over his shoulder when he reached the door. "I know that a lot has happened today, and you have all these new things to deal with. Just don't forget that the rest of us are dealing with them too, and none of us should do it alone."

Clark hesitated for a moment, trying to think of what he could say to smooth things over, and when he reached the door he saw that his father was already on the porch. To his surprise, it was Chloe he found just outside the barn.

"Chloe? What are you doing here? Why aren't you home sleeping?"

"I couldn't sleep, I told my dad I had some catching up to do at the Torch."

"On Sunday? It is still Sunday, right?"

"Since when does journalism answer to the calendar? Or the clock, or the class bell - "

"I think the real question is, when does Chloe Sullivan answer to those things? How long have you been standing there?"

Chloe shifted uneasily. "Not... too long."

"How long?"

"Long enough to get really confused."

"So you heard...?"

"I heard."

"Oh."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I thought you said you heard?"

"Yeah, I heard your words, and I heard your voice. They said two different things. You're not the only one with superpowers, you know - I have a talent for reading people."

Clark turned back to the barn without a word and took the steps to the loft two at a time. Chloe followed tentatively, taking a seat beside him on the couch.

"Are you not going to talk to me?"

"Can't you read silently?" Clark quipped.

Chloe smiled. "Nice one - really, bonus points - but seriously. You'll feel better if you get this stuff off your chest."

"I don't know if 'better' would be much of an improvement."

"It won't be if you keep sulking."

"You sound like my dad."

"Again? Okay, let me know if something on me turns plaid."

Clark chuckled despite his solemnity. "The tips of your ears are looking a little flannel-ish."

"I was afraid of that. Quick, the only cure is to tell me what I missed before I have to channel your father's wisdom again." Chloe smiled playfully, but the expression in her eyes was heartfelt and earnest.

Clark looked distant and regretful. "I just said something to him that I shouldn't have said. I didn't think first."

Chloe nodded. "I heard. But I'm sure he understands. He just wants you to talk to him."

"Yeah, I know, it's just - well, I didn't expect this, although I don't really know why it should surprise me, and I don't know. I guess I didn't realize how much it would affect me."

"Why shouldn't it? You're not even out of high school yet and you just found out that you can't have kids. I know that at our age kids are the last thing guys are usually thinking about, but most of them have the option in the future. I'd be surprised if you weren't upset about it."

Clark was silent for a long time before he looked up at Chloe. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You just - come in and make things make sense. I mean, it still hurts, but it makes sense."

"It's my job to wade through the quagmire and come up with the useful information," Chloe shrugged. "There's still something that doesn't make sense to me though."

Clark just looked at her with an eyebrow raised, waiting for her to pose her question.

"If you can't technically father children, how is it that Marin's carrying your child?"

Clark drew in a deep breath and let it out as slowly as he could. "Uh, well. She's technically not."

Chloe looked at him blankly. "See, this is why I submit to no man's timetable. I missed something huge, didn't I?"

"I don't know, is alien cloning huge?" Clark asked with his head tipped back and his eyes closed.

Chloe's jaw would have hit the floor and crashed right through if it weren't attached. "Tell me that's a joke."

"Oh, it's no joke," Clark huffed, standing and crossing over to the window. "Yeah, the reason I can't be a father is because I apparently have twice as many chromosomes as a human, which Ripley discovered, so he replaced the nuclei of some of Marin's eggs with the nuclei of some of my cells, and he basically just used her as a clone incubator."

Chloe looked stunned, unable to budge from her position on the sofa. "Okay. So... yeah, that's not a joke."

"He cloned me, Chloe!" Clark cried suddenly. "Seven times - that I know of."

"Seven? What? He implanted Marin with seven clones, is he nuts?"

"No. Well, yeah, he's crazy, but he implanted her with one. The rest are in a freezer somewhere, or something."

Chloe shook her head and walked over to Clark, giving him a sympathetic hug. "This is... so far beyond unfair, Clark. He had no right to - "

"Oh, but that's the best part!" Clark exclaimed with an almost sadistic smile. "He did have a right."

Chloe shook her head and stared up at Clark, wide-eyed. "Do you hear yourself? What are you saying?"

"Seventh grade social studies."

"What?"

"Seventh grade social studies," Clark repeated. "The Declaration of Independence.

'When in the course of human events - '"

"Yeah, I know what the Declaration is, but I don't see your point."

"In seventh grade, I had to write a report on it. It was the first time I really paid attention to what it said, and I've never been able to shake it. When my dad told me what I really was back in ninth grade, I remembered that old report and read the Declaration again. There's one part I've repeated to myself almost every day since then."

"Which is?" Chloe's concern grew as Clark's tone became more mechanical.

Clark cleared his throat and recited; "'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.'"

"All right," Chloe responded, her confusion apparent.

"Do you know what 'inalienable' means, Chloe?" Clark asked her, going to a shelf and picking up the dictionary he kept there, opening it to a dog-eared page. His action told Chloe the question was rhetorical, and she remained silent, waiting for him to find his place. It didn't take long - he'd evidently searched this word out many times before. "Not being able to be transferred or taken away, for example because of being protected by law." He looked up at Chloe, clearly expectant.

Chloe shook her head yet again, mystified by this unseen side of her friend. "I'm sorry, Clark - I just don't know what you're getting at."

"I know," Clark said, hanging his head. "And I'm not getting at it very well. I should back up. See, the first time I read the Declaration, I got stuck on the word 'inalienable.' I remember thinking something dumb, like it meant that it didn't apply to aliens. I don't know why, but that thought stayed with me, and when I found out that's what I really was, that's how I started to feel. Like those rights don't apply to me."

"What are you talking about?" Chloe challenged, her voice rising in indignation. "Of course they apply to you - you said so yourself - 'inalienable' means that they can't be transferred or taken away. They're yours just as much as they're anybody else's."

"They're only mine to people who believe I'm human. But I'm not, so I never had them in the first place. You can't have something taken away from you if you never had it. I don't have any rights, Chloe. There are no self-evident truths for me."

Chloe was incredulous. "Do you seriously believe that?"

"Do you seriously believe that - if the whole world knew what I really am - I would have any rights? That I'd be treated like a normal person? There aren't any committees for the ethical treatment of aliens, Chloe. There's just me and my secret, and anybody who knows it, knows that I'm not really entitled to anything. And that's why, technically, Dr. Ripley was within his rights."

"That's just crazy talk, Clark! Ripley couldn't even run tests on a rabbit without approval."

"That's different, there are plenty of rabbits. People know all about rabbits. But people wouldn't know me, and they fear what they don't know. I've had a long time to think about this, believe me."

Chloe was silent for a while, looking contemplative. She walked up to Clark and took the dictionary from his hands. "You say you have no rights because you're not human, right?"

Clark simply nodded.

"So, with all the time you've had to think about this, have you ever looked up the word 'human?'"

"Uh... no, I haven't."

"Well then, let's stop making educated guesses and go for the facts. I'm betting it says something other than "bipedal being with forty-six chromosomes, originating from Planet Earth." She flipped through the book until she found the page she was looking for. "Human. Five definitions. Want them all?"

"Why not?" Clark answered, not seeing what difference it would make.

"Good. But promise me this is the last time I'm going to have to drag your sorry butt out of the gutter, at least for today, okay? It's draining trying to be this smart and inspiring all the time."

Clark smiled, though somewhat against his will. "Okay, I promise. I think."

"Good enough," Chloe said, flashing him a grin. "First one: noun, a human being. Kind of ambiguous, so we'll move on. The rest are adjectives. Definition number two: relating to, involving, or typical of human beings. Do you relate, involve, and behave typically, Clark? Don't answer, I will. That's affirmative on definition number two. Number three: composed of people. Number four: showing kindness, compassion, or approachability. Number five: having imperfections and weaknesses." Chloe smiled and looked up from the page.

"What do you know, Clark? Looks like you're a textbook human after all."


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine

Author's Note: Just a brief response to Meresger's review, which I'm doing publicly because the notion raised by it is intelligent and based on fact, and as it happens, I agree! But I never said that Clark did - agree with Chloe, that is. I don't like to think that Clark would be weak-minded enough to have his years of contemplation of what humanity really is thwarted by a few adjective definitions. It was Chloe's heartfelt and - in my opinion - not misguided attempt to make him feel like he belongs, because to her and his parents, he's just as human as they are. It's necessary for Chloe to have such a firm attachment to his humanity, because if she didn't I don't think she'd be as receptive to the news of where he really comes from. She would have to be able to look back on her past with him and see - in addition to all the mysterious things about him that are now explained by him being an alien - that his intentions and actions result from characteristics that would be defined as human traits. To her, that's all that matters, and she wants him to believe in his bond with humanity because she knows that's what makes him who is. But of course, that isn't enough for Clark, so without further ado, I give you the shamefully short:

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Chloe rushed to catch up with Clark as he stalked ahead of her toward the house. "Clark, come on, would you just talk to me? What did I say?" He had left the loft without a word after Chloe made her argument, and she found this new habit of slinking off in silence distinctly unsettling. "Clark, I can't apologize if I don't know what I did wrong!"

Clark stopped and wheeled to face her, and his brusque manner left Chloe unprepared for the softness of his expression. "You didn't do anything wrong, you just - you did what everybody always does. Well, what may parents always do. And I know you all mean well, and I'm grateful for it, but I just can't take it sometimes."

Chloe shook her head in bewilderment. "Okay, color me confused," she said.

Clark stepped closer to her, leaving only inches between them as he looked down at her with profoundly lonely eyes. "It's just that people who know my secret seem to have this idea that if they can find the right words to explain the differences away, then I won't be different anymore. But sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade and let it be what it is."

"Clark," Chloe began indignantly. "I wasn't trying to insinuate that your identity is only a question of semantics. But you're not happy with being a spade, as you put it - you're the one who keeps pointing out how different you are. All that any of us is trying to tell you, I'm sure - I can't speak for you parents but I'm sure they mean the same thing - is that you're human in the only ways that really matter."

"But see, that's just not true. No, I know, you have a great argument I'm sure, but it just isn't true. A child raised by wolves is no less human for it, and me being raised by humans doesn't make me one, no matter how much I want to be. I am different!" Clark cried emphatically. "There's no denying that. Like I said before, I've had a lot of time to think about this. I'm not stupid enough to believe that the world would see me for who I am if they know what I am."

"Okay, fine, I'll go with you on the 'rose by any other name' argument - but they might, Clark. If they know who you are before they know what you are," Chloe insisted gently.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It's my job to make sense, remember?" Chloe retorted. "Think about it. You can do amazing things - really great things, Clark! Things that nobody else can do, and if the world sees those things first - all the good you can do - before everybody finds out where you came from, then there will be somebody speaking for you. I will, for one, and I'm pretty loud."

Clark was incredulous. "You've got to be kidding me! You're talking about using my abilities in public, like - don't you remember Eric Summers? He absorbed my powers, and look what happened to him. And he I was /I human."

"Yeah, he was also on a massive power trip - come on, he threw a squad car through the roof of his house! You wouldn't do things like that. You have a total hero complex, Clark. You'd help people."

Clark snorted. "So, you're suggesting I just run around saving the day until people wouldn't care if they found out I'm from another planet?" Chloe's completely flipped, he thought.

"Yeah - or fly around, whatever suits you," Chloe smiled, hoping she'd made her case.

Clark shook his head, though good-naturedly. "That's the craziest thing I ever heard."

They were interrupted by the squeak of the front door when Jonathan pulled it open. "Clark!" he beckoned. "You'd better come here. We may have a plan."

"What it that?" Clark puzzled, peering through the white mist pouring over the edge of a cooler packed with dry ice. Nestled in the center were four insulated plastic cases.

"It's the EF series, formulations 01, 08, 12, and 19," informed Dr. Crosby, standing beside the cooler.

"What happened to the other fifteen?" Chloe asked.

"Variations in the formula produced even more adverse side effects than memory loss in those versions. Most never went to human trials, they all showed significant anomalies in the early stages and were destroyed, leaving these four. EF-19 is a milder derivative of EF-12, and so on. They were the only ones that showed any applicable promise."

"Why did you bring them here?" Clark wondered.

"I didn't plan to, but I told Andrea to pack everything. Most of it was coming to you, there were only a few cases meant to be sent back to Dr. Swann in New York. This one, evidently, was mixed up with the bio-sample containers," Dr. Crosby explained.

"And there's some sort of plan now?" prodded Clark.

"That was Marin's idea," Dr. Crosby stated, gesturing to Marin to take the floor.

"Oh," Marin started, shaking her head slightly. "It was less of a plan than a suggestion, I really don't know how you could implement it."

"Well, tell me what you came up with."

"Okay," Marin sighed. "The EF formulas' potency decreases incrementally in each iteration. EF-19, as you know, causes permanent loss of up to three hours of the preceeding memories if an improperly large dose is administered. In the earlier versions, however, even a miniscule injection would trigger this effect, leaving the subject with no memory of the previous days, weeks, or up to three months in the case of EF-01."

Clark nodded. "So, you're suggesting..."

"That we somehow administer one of these to Lionel Luthor."

All eyes and ears were suddenly focused on the entryway with rapt attention at the sound of scuffling footsteps on the porch.

"Don't patronize me with that 'ladies first' opening the door nonsense, Luthor. I don't swoon, if that's what you're going for." Lois Lane's snark was tangible, even through the wood and glass of the front door.

"I'm only going for the door, Ms. Lane," Lex answered smoothly.

"Hey! Ladies first!" Lois cried, and shoved past him, opening the door even as she knocked on it. After stepping through the door, she and Lex stood transfixed by the scene before them - The Kents, Chloe, and two strange visitors gathered around stacks of boxes and files. "Some party, Smallville. Guess my invitation got lost in the mail?"

Clark could only stare aghast, glancing back and forth from Lex to Lois.

So much for super-hearing, thought Chloe.

Only Lex appeared to be completely composed. "Well, Clark. I think it's time that you and I had a little talk."


	30. Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

Marin Blake was a master of discretion, and not even Lex, arguably the most diligently observant person in the room, noticed as she silently and fluidly slipped two of the small EF formula cases into the roomy pockets of her sweater. She didn't even feel the burning sensation she'd expected from the dry ice. It wasn't until she'd completed the maneuver and Jonathan took a reactive step toward the new arrivals that Clark glanced uneasily at the evidence on the table, to find half of its most volatile contents missing. He jerked his head up, looking at Marin in shocked alarm, then threw a glance at Lois and Lex, still standing by the door and coolly awaiting an explanation.

"Marin!" Clark shouted, turning his scrutinizing glare back to her. "Are you crazy?"

Marin jumped, and all eyes followed Clark's voice in her direction.

"I'm just straightening up so we can set the table, like your mom said," Marin covered with a shrug and prayed that the others would play along.

Clark nodded. "Right… I just meant, you shouldn't lift that, I'll do it." He walked around the table to Marin, covertly mouthing to her as he replaced the lid on the cooler. "What are you doing?" he said silently.

Marin kept her voice low, inaudible to anyone who didn't have an ear right up to her lips. "I wasn't going to use it, I was trying to hide it," she mumbled, her mouth barely moving.

Clark's ears picked up the words and he gave her a single nod. "I'll just… go get this out of the way." He set the cooler out of sight around the corner and returned to the group, the rest of which was hurriedly replacing papers and folders into the boxes from which they'd come, all trying to appear casual and nonchalant as they did so.

Lois and Lex, however, watched the scene unfold with keen interest.

"Aw, isn't this nice?" Lois began. "Look Lex, I think they're rehearsing community theatre. Let me guess - you're doing Martha Stewart's pre-indictment panic? Ah, the classics." She stepped up to the table and picked up a stray document that had slipped to the floor, eyes widening as she read the notations on it. "'5:30 a.m. - Subject continues to float overhead, still no sign of regained consciousness, appears controlled, unaffected by collisions with walls,'" she read aloud, dodging away from Chloe, who lunged at her to retrieve it. "What _is_ this?" she queried, continuing to skim the page.

"It's private property," Dr. Crosby said starkly, forcefully tearing the page from Lois' grasp. "And it's no concern of yours."

"Like hell it's not!" Lois cried, looking at the anxious faces in the room. "I saw Clark's name on that page! What is going on here?" She turned to Lex, who was still standing impassively, feigning a casual demeanor far better than the others who fought so hard to do so. "Why are you just standing there?"

Lex smiled calmly and remained silent as Chloe stepped up to Lois. There were times when the actions that people took without his interference would tell him more than any interrogation.

"Lois, hey," Chloe greeted belatedly with her trademark grin. "It's nothing, really - just tax forms and stuff for the most part. A lot of old paperwork - spring cleaning, you know?"

"It's October, Chloe," Lois replied impatiently.

Chloe laughed nervously and grabbed Lois by the arm as she tried to propel her toward the door. "Yeah, well some people like to get an early start! Or a late start. Speaking of late, I was about to head back home. You should come with me, wouldn't make sense to make Lex drive you back - "

"Chloe, drop the act," Lois commanded, pulling her arm out of Chloe's grasp. "I'm not leaving until I find out what's going on! I have a lump on the back of my head the size of Plymouth Rock from being held _hostage_ here last night, I consider my admission paid. Now I demand to see the show."

Jonathan and Martha exchanged uneasy glances, but not so much over Lois. Her vocal insistence was both expected and warranted. It was Lex, hovering darkly on the perimeter with no intelligible reaction to the tension, that gave them greater cause to worry. He was there during the siege, he'd seen the Kryptonite, and he'd seen and heard far too many things over recent years to allow the events of the past few hours to be brushed away like errant dust. Maintaining his stillness in that moment was perhaps the most terrifying thing he could have done.

Lex knew that.

Jonathan swallowed, feeling the labor of even so small an action down to his core. There was no question that both Luthors knew too much about his son. There was no explaining it away, either. He took a step toward the younger Luthor - the one he'd always seen as - and now hoped was - the lesser of two evils. "Lex - " he began, his voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again, pulling out a chair. "Lex… why, uh… why don't you take a seat."

"Jonathan!" Martha gasped, watching her husband in horror. She'd never felt the unveiled contempt for the Luthors that he had, but she'd guarded her son's secret just as fiercely. She couldn't conceive of what kind of break from reality Jonathan must have experienced to behave as he was.

"Dad?" Clark said tentatively. He'd never seen his father with an expression of such uncertainty, and the last thing any of them expected was that the first person Jonathan Kent would extend the arm of truth to would be Lex Luthor.

"What choice do we have?" Jonathan choked. "Take a seat, Lex."

"Mr. Kent," Dr. Crosby interjected. "I really must protest. I think this is a reckless move."

"Do you think I want to do this?" Jonathan bellowed abruptly. "Our lives have been completely turned upside-down in the last two days, not to mention Marin's, and now we have more people than ever poking around with questions! And this is all because of _you_ and your _specialists_, who were supposed to protect my son! You and that damn Dr. Ripley - look where you've left us! Our only option is to spill our guts to _Lex Luthor_, of all people! Believe me, I'm protesting the hell out of this myself, but I don't have any choice. Now Lex, sit down," Jonathan commanded, turning his fury on the stoic young man.

_Dr. Ripley_? The name struck a chord in Lex's mind, and he filed it away for later. "Thank you, Mr. Kent, but I'll stand if you don't mind. May I help myself to a glass of water, though?" Without waiting for an answer, Lex overturned an upended glass, drying on a dishtowel beside the sink. He let the faucet run for moment, then filled the glass and raised it to his lips. He grimaced inwardly at the metallic taste, something almost foreign to his refined palate, but downed the glass nonetheless - as slowly and methodically as he could - knowing full well that each second occupied by his silent swallowing was twisting the rope that bound the Kent family secret. He knew he needn't press them. The cord was already frayed, only a few more strands before it broke.

They would tell him everything.

Lex only had to bide his time. He washed the glass thoroughly and replaced it on the towel, carefully setting it into the same ring it had left before. The words "full circle" played through his mind, which he found somewhat amusing, but he suppressed the half-smile that pulled upward against his cheek. He must remain unreadable.

Lois was playing visual ping-pong, bouncing between the Kents and company, and Lex Luthor. She was no longer certain whether she'd walked into the funny farm, or walked in with somebody who belonged there. "Okay - well, I'm going to take that chair then, if nobody else is," she said brightly, seating herself almost primly on the edge of it, smiling with raised eyebrows at the perplexed faces around her. She waited, nodding for no good reason while the silence continued. "Okay, people! You missed your cue! You're all fired! See, that was the part where I - obviously the heroine of this tale - say something stupid to break the uncomfortable silence, and then one of you pipes up with a juicy piece of relevant exposition. Let's take that from the top, shall we? Clark, your line starts with 'Yes, of course Lois, I'm going to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' Jump in when you're ready." Silence, this time accompanied by expressions even more aghast than those previous. "Really, anytime."

"Stop it, Lois, this is serious," implored Clark.

Lois winced. "Oh, I'm sorry, that's not quite it. Now - once more, with feeling!"

"I said quit it, Lois! I'm not telling you anything if this is as mature as you can be about it."

Lois opened her mouth into a wicked smirk, the wind-up for an inevitable fastball of a comeback, but she was robbed of the chance to pitch a no-hitter by the sound of insistent knocking on the front door. She swallowed her fighting words and replaced them with slightly subdued snark. "How could somebody possibly come knocking at a time like this?"

"At least they _did_ knock, before just barging in," Clark retorted, moving for the door. "Everybody act natural." Everyone else clustered behind him, both dreading and eager to see who else might have come in search of long-hidden truths. Lex hung back, subtly examining one of the many notebooks still lying out on the table.

"Coach Teague?" Clark greeted, his voice an octave higher than he'd intended. "I mean - uh, Coach. Hi." He looked to his parents for some clue to a course of action.

Jason smiled easily, his face both excited and relieved. "Clark, hey! Is your phone working?"

"Uh.. yeah, I think so," Clark shrugged.

"The refrigerator's running, too!" Lois called, followed by a quick elbow to the ribs from Chloe. "Ow!" Lois hissed. "Sorry, I was 'acting natural,' whatever that was supposed to mean."

Marin reached out from behind Lois and placed a steady hand on her arm. "Lois," she whispered. "Please don't say anything - if you care about Clark at all, just stay quiet. It's important."

Lois looked down at the shorter girl, confused and slightly perturbed that this stranger had not only addressed her by name, but had also made assumptions as to whom she cared for. It didn't matter that the assumptions were true.

But she did hold her tongue.

Jason chuckled, clearly hearing only the first portion of Lois' comment. "I've been trying to get in touch with you all day, thought maybe there was a problem with the phone. Sorry for dropping in like this. Am I interrupting something?"

"No, it's fine," Clark said with a forced smile. "We just didn't expect you."

Jason smiled and glanced over Clark's shoulder. "Looks like you were expecting everyone else though."

Clark chuckled in a manner that was uneasy at best. "You're not the first to turn up unannounced today."

Jason nodded, momentarily tossing aside the slight oddity of that remark. "Well, I would have waited until tomorrow's practice, but I have recruiters from the University of Alabama breathing down my neck about you, and they're not the most patient people I've come up against. They say head coach Mike Shula's got an eye on that arm of yours for the Crimson Tide."

"Really?" Clark wanted to be excited, but the tingle of electric anxiety in the room drew his smile into a tight line, and football was the last thing he could bring himself to be concerned with just then.

"Yeah - one of the top ten teams of all time, twelve national championships to their credit - which, I'm just gonna say, no other team in the country has, so you could definitely do worse, and it sounds like they'd give you a free ride." Jason couldn't mask his pride, nor could he deny that he felt he deserved a measure of credit for the light shining in Clark Kent's direction.

Clark grinned, praying it looked sincere. "Wow! That's - that's really great, Coach! Thanks!"

Jason assessed Clark skeptically, assuming there was indeed something going on involving the anxious group that appeared to be hanging on every word. He found his eyes searching, and was annoyed to realize that he half expected to find Lana's face among them. He was annoyed further still when he admitted to himself that it wouldn't surprise him. She wasn't as good at keeping secrets as she liked to think she was, and her unwieldy affection for Clark was one of her biggest secrets.

"Well… ah, I'll get back to the boys from Bama, then, and… I'll see you at practice tomorrow, right?" His tone had suddenly become tense and heavy, conditions evidently mutated into airborne contagions on the Kent farm.

"Right," Clark affirmed with an over-emphatic nod. "Practice. Tomorrow. I will - I will definitely be there."

"Good," Jason nodded curtly. "See you then. Sorry for interrupting your evening, Mrs. Kent, Mr. Kent… everybody."

Everyone mumbled random pleasantries as Jason gave them all a wave and ambled down the steps. Clark closed the door behind him and watched through it as the young coach got into his car and backed down the drive. He turned at last to face the room, pointing at the door behind him.

"This does _not_ happen again, understand?" he ordered. "We have to keep this calm and quiet so I can pay attention to what's going on out there. We can't afford more surprises, especially when we know there's one coming."

"Does that mean we're going to get the truth now?" Lois asked in earnest, without a trace of attitude.

"As long as you can stay quiet and listen, yes," Clark answered. He glanced nervously at Lex, who was still poring over the notebook he'd picked up earlier. "But this… this isn't going to be easy to take." He waited for an approving nod from each of his parents before he continued. "I'm… not really what you think I am," he began.

"On the contrary, Clark," Lex interrupted, finally looking up from the meticulous notes. "You're exactly what I think you are."


	31. Chapter Thirty One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

"I would have thought this stuff would be harder to work with," Philip Sawyer commented as he poured the unearthly green liquid into a bullet mold. He knew that Luthorcorp had employed the somewhat subversive use of meteor rocks since the inception of Fertilizer Plant No. 3, but had never handled it personally. Until Lionel's imprisonment, he'd been little more than a pencil pusher with a cushy desk job.

"Kryptonite has turned out to be a remarkably pliable material, with widespread applications," Lionel responded idly, turning a Colt Single Action Army six-shooter over in his latex-gloved hands. It wasn't the most stylish choice, but it was discreet, which it had to be. The weapon would have to be fired at point-blank range, or Clark would hear it coming and dodge the projectile long before it reached its mark. Dr. Ripley's records had been most helpful in that regard - Lionel finally knew how to get a step ahead of Clark Kent. He would have to get close though - which would mean the .38 would have to be small enough that it might remain undetected until it was too late.

Most importantly, the gun, with its two-inch barrel and six-chamber cylinder, could never be traced to him. It was a spoil of his own brand of war, lifted from a morally-challenged counterintelligence agent during a high-stakes exchange of cash and secrets in the early 1980's. A relic from the days when he still wrestled with his own morality, though he would never admit to such weakness. The revolver was almost an antique, its usefulness usurped by semiautomatics, but Lionel Luthor never threw anything away, and he had one final task for it. He aimed at the far wall, cocked the hammer and gave the trigger a gentle squeeze, smiling trance-like in satisfaction when the report of a blank cartridge filled the concrete room.

Sawyer jumped and his heart leapt into his throat. "What the hell!" he cried. "Couldn't you have warned me before you fired?" He settled back onto the stool he'd been working from, just thankful that the upset hadn't caused him to spill molten meteor rock on himself.

Lionel grinned patronizingly. "A bit skittish, aren't you Sawyer? Perhaps my faith in you is misplaced."

"Sorry, gunshots going off three feet from my head tend to make me nervous," Sawyer retorted uncustomarily, eliciting a raised eyebrow from his employer.

Lionel looked dubious. "Have you ever fired a weapon, Sawyer?"

"No Sir."

"Have you ever handled one?"

"No."

"Take it," Lionel commended, holding the .38 out by the barrel.

Sawyer licked his lower lip. "I'd… uh, I'd rather not, Sir."

"Go on, take it," Lionel implored like a drug dealer offering a complimentary first fix.

"Why?"

"I want to see how you handle it."

"I don't want to handle it."

"Are you refusing to follow my orders?"

Sawyer gulped. "I just - I didn't know things were going to go this way. I didn't expect - wait - do _you_ expect _me_ to shoot Clark Kent?"

Lionel laughed madly, withdrawing the arm that held the gun outstretched and aiming it at a target that wasn't in the room. "Certainly not! Only a fool would send a fool to carry out his own work. No, Sawyer. Clark Kent is the key to the future - of that I am certain - and I would not allow the likes of you to unlock it in my stead."

He cocked the hammer again, leveling his arm and pulling back on the trigger, seeing in his mind's eye the wilting form of the steely young man who had so long eluded his comprehension.

Lionel Luthor had begun to drift into delusion, but would be eluded no more.

The hero must fall, that the future might soar.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Tell me, Clark," Lex began almost blithely, crossing the room with deliberate grace as addressed his young friend with challenging eyes. "What is your purpose here?"

Clark didn't even have to feign confusion. "My purpose?"

"Yes, Clark, your purpose, your reason, your mission - you aren't here by happenstance, are you?" Lex was finally beginning to let the edge of his agitation show. His patience and poise were both wearing thin as the questions in his mind swung pendulously, slowly breaking through the tissue-like barrier that kept him from launching accusatory missiles.

Clark shook his head. "Lex, I don't know what you're - "

"_Why am I here_? _Why are we here_?" Lex interrupted. "Mankind has pondered those questions for millennia, and so few of the brilliant minds that dared to try and answer them have formulated anything close to a satisfactory hypothesis. Certainly nothing to appease the masses - those hungry for a sense of direction, needing to know that there's a reason for it all." Lex was searching Clark for something, it seemed - as if he were looking for some outward sign that should have always been apparent - as if he never should have blended in at all.

Clark's demeanor remained utterly mystified. "I'm sorry, Lex, I really don't know what you're trying to say."

Lex nodded, closed-mouthed, the intensity in his posture ebbing slightly as he took a step back. "There must be such… freedom - in not being plagued with mankind's uncertainties."

A collective catching of breath rippled through the room, and all but Lois stood stock-still, awaiting Clark's response. Jonathan and Martha appeared literally paralyzed by the confrontation.

"What on Earth does that mean?" Lois interjected.

Lex pointed at her suddenly, his arm jutting out with his finger extended like a bayonet. "_Precisely_," he spat, his focus still fixed on Clark. "What on Earth? What on Earth _are_ you? What are you doing here?"

Lois' brow furrowed. "You just said you know what he is," she recalled. "How about enlightening the rest of us? Or, evidently just me, since everybody else seems to have at least read the cliff notes on this book."

"I do know, now," reiterated Lex. "I must admit though, that this revelation was more than even I had bargained for." He stepped back to the table, keeping one distrustful eye on Clark as he retrieved the folder he'd been studying moments before. "There's little about this town that leaves room for surprise, and yet as usual, Clark, you transcend even that expectation. Tell me, Chloe," he continued, diverting his address but still not his eyes to the young reporter. "How long have you been studying the strange occurrences of Smallville?"

Chloe looked wide-eyed and shrugged, uncertain as to whether answering would play into Clark's favor or his detriment. "Uh, pretty much since I moved here, I guess."

"And in that time, you've witnessed and reported disaster, deformity, death, destruction - all as a result of the events of one cataclysmic event. Yes?" Lex waited with his head cocked expectantly.

Clark's jaw went slack. He knew where Lex's train of thought was traveling now - or had at least identified its next stop. "Lex, please, you don't have to do this."

"A stunning display, if I may say so, Clark. I've had fireworks at birthday parties myself, though nothing to rival that."

Lois was becoming progressively more frustrated. "Okay, see, this - this whole cataclysmic event thing? Not making things any clearer for Lois."

"That was the beginning of it, wasn't it?" Lex was gathering steam.

"Of what?"

"Your purpose." Lex took a menacing step forward, a manila folder in his hand.

"What are you talking about? What purpose?" Clark swallowed heavily, hoping that, just once, his superhuman hearing would fail him long enough that he wouldn't have to hear what came next.

"Even as a _child_ you bent us to your will, didn't you? By your very arrival here - "

"Lex, that's enough," Jonathan barked, reanimated suddenly by the look of acute anguish on his son's face.

"Oh, it isn't nearly enough, Mr. Kent," Lex objected. "He's here to conquer." He turned his attention back to Clark. "Aren't you, Kal-El?"

Clark's features contorted into pained restraint. "Shut up! Stop it!"

"You lost no time, did you?" Lex refused to back down. "From the first moment you were here, you began to fulfill this mission!" He gestured with the folder, his eyes wild.

"Lex, stop it! You don't know what you're talking about!" Clark cried.

Lex nodded, neither in triumph nor concession - he merely flipped the folder open to the page in its center and began to read. "_On this third planet from this star, Sol, you will be a god among men. They are a flawed race. Rule them with strength, my son. That is where your greatness lies_."

"Lex," Clark implored. "Please, you don't understand - "

"No, Clark, I do understand. You were meant for greatness, as your father intended. 'Rule them with strength.' A god among men, indeed. We are a flawed race."

A vacuous silence engulfed the room as its occupants pondered Lex's cryptic response.

"But it gives me cause to wonder, Clark. When my father died this morning, was it for the flaws of our race, or the strength of your rule?"


	32. Chapter Thirty Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Lex, though slight in stature when compared to Clark, cut an imposing silhouette against the motionless backdrop of those surrounding them. The fiery challenge glowed tangibly in his eyes as he stared Clark down, taut and unblinking.

Clark's mind was overrun, trying to process both the notion that Lionel Luthor was dead, and Lex's allegation that the blame for it belonged to him. "Lex…" he managed to stammer after a prolonged silence. "I… I'm sorry, your dad was - how? I had no idea, I - wait, what do you mean, strength of my rule?" His jaw fell agape as he regarded his friend's accusatory stance. "_You think I killed your father_?" He suddenly looked winded, as if he'd run a marathon with no super-human abilities to sustain him.

Lex's scrutiny did not soften outwardly, though he secretly acknowledged the ardor of Clark's reaction. "So, it's just a staggering, cosmic coincidence that within _hours_ of your home being invaded on his orders, he suffered a cardiac arrest and -"

"What could Clark possibly have had to do with him having a heart attack?" Jonathan interjected in his son's defense.

Lex's glare was a visual dagger. "I think the events of the last twenty-four hours have earned me the right to speak without interruption, Mr. Kent," he spat coolly.

"Not if you speak to me that way, they don't!" Jonathan countered. "You may feel you have some justification in attacking my son, even though it's ridiculous, but you will _not_ speak to him, or me, or anyone else under this roof like that again! This is _my house_! I've had enough of Luthors trying to take over _my_ house, my family, my farm - you and your father have somehow managed to stick your finger into every damn aspect of our lives and I will not tolerate it anymore! You can not come in here and accuse Clark of - "

"My father died in a routine MedEvac flight out of the Kansas State Penitentiary! Routine, that is, until it _exploded_!" Lex shouted over Jonathan's tirade. "I've had every available record checked, that helicopter was meticulously serviced and maintained, and I have no doubt at all that investigators will find evidence that it was tampered with. Now, you tell me, who else had more motive or opportunity?"

Jonathan took a brisk step in Lex's direction. "Oh, there's no shortage around here of motive to get rid of a Luthor, got that right!"

"Are you threatening _me_ now, Mr. Kent?" Lex demanded, meeting Jonathan's advance.

"No, Lex, that's the difference between Kents and Luthors - we _have_ a sense of morality, for one thing, and - "

"All right! That is _enough_!" Lois shouted, stepping between the two foes before they drew close enough to throw punches. "I for one am sick of watching this scene unfold and apparently being the only one who has no idea what it's about! Mr. Kent, you're right, this is your home, but cool it - sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds there, but Lex's dad just died, I think he's entitled to some answers. And you - Lex - step back and look at who you're accusing, Mr. Salt-of-the-earth over here! Yeah, things happen around Clark and I better get some answers about that in the next ten seconds or I'm gonna give you all a demonstration of what it's like to be raised by General Sam Lane - but damn it Lex! He's still Clark! His moral compass is permanently stuck on 'choir boy.' How could you really think that he'd kill your father?" Lois' eyes skipped between the room's occupants along with her disjointed monologue, then finally landed on Clark. His eyes met hers with gratitude and sadness, and… something else. Something new and undefined. It unsettled her, evoking a reaction she hadn't wanted or expected, so she diverted her gaze again.

"Now both of you, sit down," Lois continued, regaining herself after her momentary departure from clarity. "Neither of you is objective enough to handle running this discussion, and I doubt anybody else here is either, so I'm gonna do it. Nobody talks unless I ask them to, got it? Everybody here wants an answer to something and nobody's gonna get it unless everyone shuts up and stops talking over everyone else."

"Lois," Jonathan tried to take back control. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but - "

"Well then please, Mr. Kent, take a seat and do as I ask," Lois replied with an authoritative smile. Nobody in the room could discern whether Lois was taking excessive liberties with the situation, or if she really was the only one with a clear enough head to make any sense of it. Lois herself was a bit taken aback by her unabashed audacity, but she nonetheless pressed on, taking charge from an investigative stance as Jonathan settled reluctantly into a chair beside the table.

"Well then, let's get started," Lois commenced. "First, let me see what I got out of this so far. Evidently the meteor shower had something to do with Clark's arrival from another planet, which - okay, that's a completely X-Files idea and I'm just gonna table that for a minute - and the meteor rocks are responsible for a ton of the weird stuff around here. Clark can do a lot of unusual things, presumably because he's an alien - oh my _God_, is he really? Wait, no - no, I'm not asking questions yet, let me finish thinking out loud. So, Clark's an alien - ha! Of course he is! And he's supposed to take over the planet? Yeah, okay, fearless leader in flannel… whatever - and Lex, you've always suspected there was something different about him, right? So what? You figure your dad found out his secret and Clark killed him for it? Is that what the whole house-arrest situation was this morning? Wait, was that only this morning? Shut up Lex, I'm still not actually asking you for answer. Today I've been held hostage without having a clue why, and I come back here to find all kind of weird evidence that this guy who's butt I've saved on more than one occasion is some kind of super-human alien thing or whatever, and - yeah, hey, who the hell are you two? And what are you doing here?" Lois demanded as she turned to Marin and Dr. Crosby, remembering them suddenly.

Knowing that the truth was imminent anyway, Dr. Crosby answered honestly. "I'm Dr. Bridgette Crosby, and this is Marin Blake. We're both employed by Dr. Virgil Swann, under the Swann Foundation, and have been working for the past several months on studying Clark's origins, abilities, biology, and weaknesses, among other things. After learning that Clark is the only known survivor of Krypton, a planet which was destroyed just after his departure as an infant, Dr. Swann assembled a team to study Clark for his benefit rather than that of the scientific community. We're here now because a former colleague - our biogeneticist - manipulated some of Clark's and Marin's genetic material into six alien embryos and secretly implanted her with one, and has since absconded with all of the data that reveals Clark's identity, along with all of our discoveries. We believe he brought this information to Lionel Luthor, which resulted in your unfortunate confinement here this morning, and which is no doubt the reason that the younger Luthor believes Clark to be responsible for his father's death." Dr. Crosby, in her usual fashion, delivered her address in a direct manner without pause to allow its gravity to settle.

Lois managed to hold her determined expression through the length of the doctor's speech, then began to slowly bob her head when she finished. "Okay then," she said casually, jutting out her lower lip. "That was… straightforward."

"Lois?" Clark spoke timidly, taking a step toward her.

"Hold it," she answered briskly, halting him with a raised hand. "I kind if need to digest that for a minute." She looked down at the floor and shook her head several times, disbelieving her own memories. "Oh my _God_!" she cried suddenly, raising her head to reveal that her eyes had grown moist. "Oh my God, I'm an idiot, I should have known something - and wait a minute!" She gestured to Marin with slightly shaking finger. "You - you're carrying his - his what? His baby clone? Is that it?"

"Lois," Clark tried again pleadingly, reaching for her shoulder. "Lois please, just listen to me for a minute, I can - "

"Did you kill Lionel Luthor?" Lois queried abruptly, wheeling on him and pulling herself just out of his reach.

"What? No! Of course I didn't, I've never killed anybody! I never _would_ kill anybody!" Clark's eyes were ablaze with sincerity, and none of it was lost on Lois.

She held his gaze for an interminable length of time, searching his eyes for something. After a long, silent moment, she stepped back on her heel and nodded, appearing to have found what she was looking for. "Of course you didn't."

"You believe me?" Clark looked incredulous.

"I believe you. You're not a good enough liar to have done something like that and gotten away with it. You haven't even hidden your secret very well, the only reason it stays secret at all is because it's too un_freaking_believable for most people to guess."

Clark stared at her, impressed with her acceptance and composure in the face of what she'd learned. "You're okay with this?"

Lois laughed out loud, and it sounded cold and hollow. "Not by a long shot! Not yet at least. You're an _alien_, Clark! It's gonna take a little time for me to combine that fact with the all-American farmboy quarterback image, okay?"

Clark looked around quietly at the other faces in the room, all focused with rapt attention on he and Lois. Lex - as always - was unreadable, Jonathan was still livid, Martha's face was ashen, Chloe's hands were clasped together in front of her mouth as she held her breath and her heartbeat in anticipation of her cousin's reaction. Dr. Crosby appeared perturbed by the interruption and the widening of the circle of those in the know.

Marin anchored her gaze toward the floor, though her eyes were closed against it, the lids holding back hot tears that betrayed the brokenness she felt. _You - you're carrying his - his what? His baby clone? Is that it?_ Lois hadn't meant it venomously, but those words nonetheless poisoned her already bitter outlook. _Is that it? Yes, Marin Blake, that's it. And that's all_.

"Excuse me," she whispered meekly, slipping out through the kitchen door without anyone making a move to stop her, not that she expected to be chased.

Clark considered going after her, but was arrested by the look on Lois' face - shock, confusion, fascination - and he couldn't tear himself away. "Do you want to talk about this?"

Lois released her breath in a heavy gust. "You know, I'm not so sure my brain can process any new information right now, it needs a breather, I think. And the lump on my head is killing me - got an ice pack?" _In other words, got a diversion_?

"Yeah, of course," Clark replied, taking her by the elbow and leading her to the freezer. He wrapped a cold pack in a dishtowel and held it to the back of her head, meeting her eyes as she brought her hand up to replace his.

"Clark," she whispered reaching a cautious hand toward his face. She looked nervous, uncertain, biting her lower lip - then she brushed her thumb against his cheek, and her face broke into a wide, relieved smile. "It's funny, you know?"

"What?" Clark was transfixed. Her hand was still there, warm and soft against his face.

"You still _feel_ like an all-American farmboy quarterback."


	33. Chapter Thirty Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

"He isn't dead."

Lex's words came suddenly, almost silently. He was somehow both stoic and incredulous. "_He isn't dead_!" he repeated, his exclamation taking on an angry edge.

All eyes focused on Lex as he pressed his fingers together and his eyes became wild with speculation.

"Lex?" Clark prodded. "You okay?"

"Dr. Ripley!" Lex shouted and pointed a targeted finger at Jonathan. "You said Dr. Ripley. Dr. Ethan Ripley?" He turned to Dr. Crosby. "He was your colleague, wasn't he? The one who went to my father with all of your data on Clark?"

"Yes, that was him," Dr. Crosby affirmed calmly.

"Magnificent _bastard_!" Lex cried, the words pushed out by a sound something like laughter. "My father _staged_ it! He staged _all _of it!"

"Lex, what are you talking about?" Chloe interposed.

"Dr. Ripley! When I spoke to the warden of the Penitentiary… one of my father's last recorded visitors was a Dr. Ethan Ripley, and then the medic who released him to the MedEvac team reported handing him off to a Dr. Ripley." Lex shook his head almost admiringly. "Unbelievable. The siege went south, so he orchestrated a jailbreak by faking his own death. Oh, it all fits together now." He ran a hand over his face and brought his focus up to Clark's stunned visage. "Clark?" Lex said, cocking his head to one side. "What does my father want with you?"

"What did _you_ want with him?" Jonathan challenged. "You've tried to dig up Clark's secret every bit as hard as Lionel has. Like father like son, right?"

"Jonathan," Martha said softly with a steady hand on his shoulder. "Now's not the time. If Lex is right and Lionel's alive, then this is more dangerous than any of us thought. If he's gone so far as to fake his death then there's no telling what he has in store for Clark."

"She's absolutely right," Dr. Crosby agreed. "And since we have no reason to think otherwise, we have to believe that he knows about everything, which includes the clone embryos. His actions so far have been drastic, he'll stop at nothing to get the clones, I'm certain."

"Can we pause for a second while my brain catches up?" Lois mused aloud. "You're saying this guy, Ripley, has taken everything to Lionel, so Lionel knows all about the mini-Clarks and probably knows where they are, right? And they're supposedly everything Clark is, genetically speaking, right?"

"Right."

"But he knows Clark wouldn't allow them to fall into his hands if he could prevent it, right?"

"Of course."

"So…" Lois' jaw dropped in realization. "He's going to try to kill Clark, isn't he? I mean, that's the only way he could ever hope to be in control of the clones, isn't it?"

Martha gasped chokingly and fell weakly against Jonathan. "No!"

"That is _not_ going to happen!" Jonathan shouted resolutely.

"Of course not," Lois agreed hopefully, "But they're too valuable to him not to try - especially the one that's already growing. Am I right?"

Clark was suddenly panic-stricken. "He'll be coming after Marin!"

The room was suddenly abuzz with feverish commentary until Chloe cried out over the din.

"Where _is_ Marin?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Kent farm had a welcoming glow about it regardless of the hour of the day. It

guarded many secrets, but it held no foreboding shadows. It was open to its friends and neighbors.

And likewise, its enemies.

Running a gloved hand over the outline of the revolver tucked into the back of his waistband, Lionel smiled glibly to himself, fully abandoned now to the thick of his madness. He saw the girl - she must be the Miss Blake of whom he'd heard so much - as she tumbled out of the house and sank tearfully to her knees in the yard.

Apparently there were some secrets too terrible for even the Kent farm to contain.

Lionel Luthor remained hidden from view, concealed by bushes only a few yards away. He was confident that he would not be discovered as long as nobody had reason to suspect his presence.

Marin Blake held her face to the sky and cried with her eyes closed.

It wouldn't be long now.


	34. Chapter Thirty Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Marin sat with her legs folded beneath her in the long grass, which was just beginning to dry and wither as autumn commenced its bleeding into winter. She wanted to wither too, to fade until she was parched and then ground into the earth, hardened by the cold season. October would end soon, and Marin Blake found herself wishing she could follow it as it slipped away, to stay with the last of her happy days in the frozen peace that lay behind the approaching future, the comfort of a few precious moments on days now hidden, because the page of the calendar has turned. The place where months and seasons go when their purpose has been served.

But Marin couldn't wither. She had felt herself begin to change, she was growing stronger. She had none of Clark's abilities, but she didn't need any to hear him step tentatively up behind her and drop to his knees in the grass.

"Marin?" he spoke softly. "Why don't you come back inside?"

Marin barely glanced at him over her shoulder, but turned away quickly in an effort to hide her tears. She'd never liked wearing her heart on her sleeve, and she'd already shown too much of herself to Clark. No more tears for Clark Kent, she'd decided. Tears are anarchists, however, and seldom obey orders. "I'm okay here," she whispered.

"No," Clark shook his head. "It's not safe, we don't know when Lionel will come or what he's planning to do. You need to come inside, he'll be coming for you."

Marin scoffed. "Lionel Luthor is coming for me. That's rich."

"Well, you know - the baby." Clark rested his elbows on his knees and studied his boot laces.

"The clone," Marin corrected and tried to inconspicuously wipe the wetness out of her left eye.

Clark winced and scratched the back of his head. "Please don't say that."

"You have to call a spade a spade, Clark."

"Maybe you have to, but don't tell me that I do. Like you said before, I'm not bound by the same conventions. Yeah, I can do a lot of things that other people can't, but what I really want is the things they take for granted."

"Like parenthood."

Clark shifted uncomfortably and looked up at the empty sky. "Well yeah, to put a fine point on it."

"Well, that's the point you're trying to make, isn't it?"

"I guess."

"You guess?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Marin shook her head. "Spit it out, Clark."

"What?" He looked up at her in surprise.

"I can tell there's something you're not saying."

"No there isn't," Clark protested. "Not really."

Marin raised an eyebrow and turned to face him. "Yes there is."

"Nope."

"Yep."

"Why do you think so?"

"Just say it."

"Fine!" Clark growled, but didn't continue.

"Well?" Marin prodded after waiting for a moment.

"Give me a minute."

"Okay."

Clark pulled a blade of grass out of the ground and tore it lengthwise into strips. "It's just that… see, this might be as close as I'll ever get to the normal family thing."

"And by 'this' you mean the clone I'm carrying," Marin surmised.

"The baby."

"Right, the baby."

"Yeah, that's what I mean." He tossed the shredded blade of grass into the breeze. "And I also meant you."

"Me?" Marin looked incredulous. "What are you talking about?"

Clark looked suddenly petrified and ran a nervous hand through his hair as he stammered. "I mean you… and me… and the baby, just - you know? What I mean?"

Marin's jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide. "You mean you want to do this together? As in… _together_?"

Clark himself looked taken aback by hearing the idea put into even such vague words. "I… well… yeah? Yes, I mean. Yes."

Marin searched his eyes. "Are you serious?" she whispered.

Clark nodded earnestly. "Yeah." He took her right hand. "We can do this, Marin. We can make this work."

Marin drew her hand back. "No."

"No?" Clark looked bruised. "We can't make it work? Why not?"

Marin fought the tears that she felt rising once again. "Because it's not really what you want. You want the whole Norman Rockwell painting ideal, but the trouble is I'm not the one in that picture. I don't want you committing yourself to me out of some misguided sense of obligation."

Clark made no attempt to hide his shock, tinged with anger. "Misguided? _Misguided_? You're carrying my child! How is it misguided that I should want to stand by you? I can't let you go through that alone! And sorry, but it's not entirely up to you, it's up to me too."

"You didn't put me in this position, Clark, you don't owe me anything. We're both victims. We were both dealt an unfair hand here."

"And what? You're just going to sit by and accept the worst of it? You don't even want to try to make the best of it?"

"It wouldn't be _real_, Clark! Don't you see that? We could play house for a while and pretend that everything's comin' up daisies, we might even be happy, but it wouldn't last. You're in _highschool_ Clark, you have everything ahead of you, this is not what you want."

"Don't tell me what I want!" Clark cried. "You don't know what I want."

"Being trapped is not what you want, I know that."

"This isn't being trapped, this might be my only chance at this."

"At fatherhood? You want to do that, at seventeen? You are not responsible for this, Clark! You're meant for such big things, don't you see that? You can't tie yourself down to something you don't really want out of a sense of duty that isn't really yours."

"Stop telling me what I can't do," Clark spat.

"You don't love me, Clark, that's the bottom line. I've accepted that. Don't pretend you feel something that you don't. It only makes this harder for both of us."

"Why are you so sure of what I feel or don't feel?" Clark edged closer to her.

Marin looked at him directly. "Can you look me in the eye and say you love me?"

Clark hesitated. "I…"

"See?" Marin turned away, cursing the still-rising tears.

"Don't do that, Marin. Stop assuming things. A lot of stuff has happened lately, you've got to give me some time to figure that out. Maybe you're right and it can't work, but I think it's worth really giving it a try, don't you?

"It's just prolonging the inevitable."

"Why do you say things like that?"

Marin smiled in spite of herself and shook her head. "You really don't see it, do you?"

"What?"

"Lois."

"_ Lois_?"

"Don't deny you have feelings for her."

Clark swallowed dryly. "Well yes, but… no more than for you."

Marin couldn't suppress a wounded laugh. "Oh, now that's just not true."

"And you would know that how?" Clark queried indignantly.

"I'm a skilled observer, but you wouldn't have to be one to see there's something between you two. Something undeniable. You love her. She's the one in your Norman Rockwell painting."

Clark responded with silence, and he remained wordless for quite some time as he stared out over the horizon. Finally, he shook his head and turned back to Marin. "No. That isn't a good enough reason. Just because you think I'm supposed to be with somebody else doesn't mean that I agree. I've had enough of people telling me what my future is supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do - I don't want it all mapped out. I don't want to have things decided for me. I care about Lois, yeah, and that may or may not change, I don't know, but that's the point. The future hasn't happened yet, we don't know what's in it, and I want it that way. The only thing I know for sure is that this, right here right now with you, is an opportunity, and I may never have another chance like this. No, I wasn't planning on being a dad at seventeen, but life is unpredictable and I can't just give this up. And I can't just pass you up either. If you really truly don't care about me and don't want to give this a shot that's one thing, but if you do, you have to try it with me. You said we're both victims here, and yeah, it started that way but it doesn't have to end that way. It's not gonna be easy either way, but wouldn't you rather try it together first?"

Clark's boyish hopefulness was beginning to wear down Marin's defenses, but she was determined not to let him make a mistake, as she was certain that was what it would be. "It's not that simple, Clark."

"Of course it isn't simple, it's the craziest situation I can imagine, but we're in it, so what are we gonna do about it?"

It was Marin's turn to give pause to her words and gaze into the distance. She watched the gentle October breeze curling through the treetops beyond the fields, their leaves having donned their autumn reds and golds. To Marin, they shone with a melancholy beauty. "People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime."

"What?"

"The people you meet throughout your life. Some are there only briefly, to teach you something or to learn something from you, and they move on. They're like flashes. Some are meant to stay with you forever. And then there are those who are meant to be with you through a season. They're like bridges between stages of your life. You meet them, they change you, maybe you change them, hopefully all for the better, but then there comes a point when one or both of you realizes that you'll never have more than that. Just a season. Might be beautiful, might be cold, might be brilliant, but only a season nonetheless."

Clark nodded sullenly. "So, you're saying that's all we are to each other? A season?"

Marin's expression was pained as she nodded. "If that. More like a fall storm system," she said, attempting levity and falling flat.

Clark shook his head. "I disagree. I think people only leave your life if they decide to and you decide to let them. People aren't seasons. If we both believed that this could work, then it could work. That's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned."

Marin only hung her head. "Clark, one day you'll take a good look at Lois Lane -a real, honest look - and you'll understand everything I've been saying."

"So in the mean time I'm supposed to pretend that you don't matter to me at all?"

"Better than pretending that I matter to you more than I do."

Clark shook his head and tore a handful of grass from the ground near his feet. "This is just insane, all of this. It's so messed up."

Marin bit her lower lip and the first of those long-restrained tears began to fall. "Clark, I'm sorry, I know none of this is going the right way and it's all really hard to deal with, but someday you'll understand it, that it was for the best."

"I don't think I can talk about this anymore right now."

"That's okay."

"We should get back inside."

"Okay."

Clark stood and offered a hand down to Marin, pulling her to her feet. He looked down at her face and wiped away a tear clinging to her chin. "I know you don't believe this can happen. I don't know if it's because you're scared or what, but I just want you to know that if you're willing to try, I'm here." He pulled her into a hug and brought his lips close to her ear. "I haven't forgotten that night in your room. Not a second of it. I know it didn't go the way we expected it to, but I'll never forget it. And I was not pretending."

There was no holding back the tears then, and Marin let herself fall against Clark, crying into his shirt as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She couldn't make sense of anything, and for the moment, she didn't want to.

Clark held her and stroked her hair, then pulled back just enough to look into her tear-streaked face before he brought his lips to meet hers. Amid his distraction, he never heard the stealthily approaching footsteps, nor the cocking of the hammer on the army pistol in Lionel Luthor's hand. He didn't even hear the roar of the shot before he felt the fiery pain of a kryptonite bullet biting through the flesh of his back.


	35. Chapter Thirty Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The searing pain that tore through Clark's middle was intense and nearly brought him to his knees, but just as his legs began to buckle he realized that the pain was already beginning to subside. It was still acute and almost unbearable, but the sharpness of it had already begun to ebb away. Terrified, Clark knew that could mean only one thing.

The bullet had passed through him.

No sooner had he realized this than Marin weakly lifted her face, which was twisted in a confused grimace of pain. Her eyes were arresting as she begin to slip down in Clark's arms, and with a choking sob he tried to catch her. Drained as he was, he could barely hold her up and sank with her to the ground, where he at least saw the wound.

Lionel's bullet had struck its mark, hitting Clark just to the left of his spine, but it encountered nothing that would slow it enough to keep it from exiting him. Now it was Marin, whose body had been manipulated with Kryptonian DNA, who lay writhing under the effects of the poison rock lodged against her backbone.

She couldn't speak, she could only gasp for air and clutch at Clark's shirt. He himself could hardly sit up, but he managed to turn and found that his eyes met those of Lionel Luthor, who stood aghast, mutely observing what he'd done. _I've cornered the beast and killed the prize_.

Rage, though it consumed him, was not enough to propel Clark off the ground. The pain coursing through his abdomen was still so great that he could scarcely form words, but he kept his eyes on Lionel and hovered protectively over Marin as she sputtered and her eyes began to glaze over. Death was imminent, it was clear.

It seemed as if an interminable length of time had passed between the firing of the gun and the first of Martha Kent's screams, but it was really only seconds before everyone on the Kent farm had spilled out of the house and come to a horrified halt at the grisly scene before them.

Lex was first to arrive. "Dad?" he said, incredulous and unable to find any other words.

"Lex, son," was all Lionel could say, though detachedly as if he were no longer in full possession of his faculties. Indeed, he appeared as shocked by the tragedy as anyone else.

"Clark!" Martha cried out and ran to her son's side, followed closely by Chloe and Dr. Crosby, who knew in an instant that Marin was nearing her last breath. Blood poured from a wound just above her abdomen and her veins pulsated with the sickening green of kryptonite poisoning.

"Clark, look at me," Martha pleaded, turning his face to her.

"I'm… okay, it went through me, it's Marin… she's…" He twisted his head to see her face. Her breath was coming in short, shallow bursts now, and her eyes were unfocused. "Marin?"

Jonathan, meanwhile, was approaching Lionel cautiously, as he still held the gun poised to shoot and was clearly not in his right mind. He was only a few feet off when Lionel suddenly swung his arm and pointed the revolver at his chest. "That's quite close enough, Mr. Kent," he said calmly.

Lois stood in the center of it all and tried to make sense of the cavalcade of thoughts running through her head. Her eyes fell to Clark, who was lying on his back with fresh blood on his shirt and angry tears in his eyes, as he helplessly watched Marin and what might be his only chance for fatherhood die. She was just about to kneel beside him when she noticed Chloe rifling through the pockets of Marin's sweater. "Chloe? What are you doing?"

Chloe didn't answer, but she suddenly leapt to her feet and darted past Lois, charging at Lionel.

"Chloe, no!" Lex cried, noticing the uncapped syringe in her hand. He lunged for her and grabbed her by the waist.

"Let me go!" Chloe screamed, twisting in his arms.

"I can't let you do this!" Lex shouted, tightening his grip.

"You hate him more than anybody does! Look what he did to them! He deserves it!" She struggled against him, but to no avail.

Suddenly a second shot rang out, and Chloe put a hand to her shoulder, pulling it away to find it covered in blood.

Lois screamed. "You shot her!" she shouted, to which Lionel merely shrugged.

Lex suddenly began gasping for air and he lost his grip on Chloe, and as the two fell away from each other, the others could see the syringe she'd intended for Lionel poking out of Lex's arm. He looked at Chloe in confusion as he dropped to his knees and began to lose consciousness.

"I didn't mean to!" Chloe cried, clutching her wounded shoulder. "It was an accident!"

"What did you do to my son?" Lionel bellowed, withdrawing his attention from Jonathan and once again taking aim at Chloe.

"No!" Lois cried, trying to intervene, but Jonathan acted first. The instant Lionel turned his back, Jonathan lunged at him and knocked the gun from his hand.

Enraged, Lionel managed to recoil quickly enough to reward Jonathan's heroism with a mighty blow to his left temple, sending him momentarily reeling, and Lionel took the opportunity to force him to the ground. It wouldn't have taken more than another instant for Jonathan to regain his footing, but the ominous click of the revolver's hammer caused everyone to freeze.

"Back off, Luthor," Lois commanded, leveling Lionel's own gun at him. It had landed at her feet when Jonathan disarmed him.

Lionel's fiery glare was balanced by the wicked grin that spread over his face as he stood and brushed the dirt from his knees. "Why, Miss Lane," he laughed menacingly. "Are _you_ threatening _me_?"

"Don't mock me, Luthor," Lois replied, taking a step closer. She'd always thought of herself as tough, unyielding, unshakeable, but the truth in that moment was that she was terrified. She was staring down the barrel of a gun at a man who was practically evil incarnate.

"Mock you?" Lionel chuckled. "I wouldn't dream of it." His devious grin was far more truthful than his words.

"I mean it Mr. Luthor, if you push me I'll shoot," Lois threatened, drawing on every drop of moxie she had.

"Well then, take aim and fire," Lionel challenged, not believing for a second that she would.

"I'd aim for your heart, but I doubt you'd feel it," Lois spat, her finger pressed against the trigger. She threw a glance toward Clark, who was slowly regaining his strength. He was able to sit up now, and was bent in grief over Marin, his fingers intertwined with hers as she expelled one last breath, her life floating away with it on the October wind she'd longed to follow.

Lionel laughed deeply and took an easy step toward her. "Impressive, Miss Lane, very good show, but enough of this charade. You and I both know you're not going to kill me. It isn't in you."

"No?" Lois asked indignantly. She looked around, finding everyone else had been leveled in some way. Lex was unconscious, Clark and Chloe had been shot, and Marin was dead. "It's in you though, isn't it?"

Lionel merely shrugged indifferently.

Lois pulled the trigger.

She hit her mark, and Lionel was dead when he hit the ground, blood draining from the wound in his forehead. Lois dropped the gun and collapsed to her knees, both hands clapped over her mouth. For all her stalwart strength, she'd never really imagined having to take another human life. She tried to remain composed, fought against the roiling tightness in her chest, but there was nothing she could do to prevent the sobs that poured out of her. She hushed them and choked them back as best she could, but still they got the better of her. She turned her back to Lionel and found Clark, Martha, Dr. Crosby and Chloe staring at her. Jonathan was suddenly at her side and with a supportive arm he led her to the rest of the group, all gathered solemnly around Marin's motionless body.

Nobody spoke. There were no words to suit the gravity of the moment. There were wounds to be tended and plans and explanations to be made, but the crushing heaviness of all that had just occurred pressed into all of them and robbed every one of them - even the irrepressibly coherent Dr. Crosby - of any power to do anything.

Lois Lane, however, could only take silence for so long, and the sound of the gun and the feel of it recoiling in her hand kept plaguing her subconscious. She needed to stop that. "Is Lex okay?" she asked by way of a diversion.

"He… ahem," Dr. Crosby began, clearing her throat. "He'll be fine. He was given a drug that causes temporary unconsciousness and permanent memory loss."

"Memory loss?" Lois was shocked.

"Yes, for the previous three days, I think. There are several formulas that cause different degrees of memory loss, but I believe the one Chloe accidentally injected him with will only effect his memory for the last three days."

Lois gave Lex a long sideways glance and nodded. After a long pause she raised her head. "Can you do that to me?"

"What?" Clark exclaimed. "No!"

"Lois!" Chloe cried. "Why would you want that?"

Lois lowered her head, attempting to hide her tears. She shook her head and finally looked up again. "I just can't do this, this is too much. I'm sitting here with an alien and a girl who was murdered and I just killed a man - _I just killed a man_ - and I just don't want to remember it. Any of it."

"Lois, you can't really mean that," Martha pleaded gently.

"I do," Lois protested. "I know everybody sees me as tough, but even I can only take so much and I just can't take this. Not now." She looked at Clark, who looked away when her eyes met his. "You understand, don't you?"

Clark shrugged without looking up. "You do what you have to do."

Dr. Crosby rummaged in Marin's pocket and drew out the other formula case that Marin had hidden there when Lex and Lois arrived. "This one is EF-12. It will erase your memory for the last three months, maybe a little longer. Are you certain you want to do this?"

"Three months?" _That goes back to before I ever came to Smallville. Before I even met Clark_. Lois glanced at Chloe, who seemed to be visually begging her not to go through with it, and then at Clark, who wouldn't look at her. "Yes, I'm certain," she said and rolled up her sleeve. "Do it."

"It's not like you to run away from things, Lois. Please don't do this," Chloe begged.

"I'm not running away," Lois argued softly. "It's for my sanity's sake. This is what I have to do." She held out her arm to Dr. Crosby, who took an alcohol pad from the case and cleaned a spot over her wrist. Lois looked at Clark again. "You do understand, don't you Clark?"

He still didn't look up. "Whatever you need to do, Lois."

Lois nodded silently, biting her lip as the needle pierced her skin.

"See ya around, Smallville," she said with her sideways smile just before the drug took effect. She slumped sideways against him after her breathing evened out and unconsciousness had claimed her.

Clark brushed a lock of hair away from her face and thought about all the things that Marin had said to him. He was a jumble of emotions and confusion, feelings unresolved and unrequited, but one thing Marin had said kept rising to the surface. _One day you'll take a good look at Lois Lane - a real, honest look - and you'll understand everything I've been saying._

"I'll see you, Lois Lane."


	36. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

**Lex**

Lex's three-day memory loss was attributed by his doctors to un unidentifiable drug, which he assumed had been slipped into his food or drink by someone on his personal staff. He had them all replaced and underwent several different very aggressive regression therapies to try and regain those three days, but met with no success.

In taking inventory of all of his father's assets after his demise, Lex discovered an unmarked case full of biological specimens, six of which were documented as embryos. There was little paperwork to accompany them, but analysis revealed that they were not of human origin.

Investigation of his father's death revealed that Lionel Luthor was not in fact in the MedEvac helicopter when it exploded, so he was labeled as a fugitive from justice. Exhaustive searches for his whereabouts proved fruitless.

**The Kents**

Jonathan and Martha did their best to return to life as usual, or as usual as life on the Kent farm could ever be. Jonathan took on the unpleasant task of disposing of Lionel's body, the details of which he never divulged except to say that he would never be found. He and Martha, along with Clark, attended Marin's funeral in Metropolis, which was arranged by Dr. Crosby, who also signed off on the cause of death being a gunshot wound to the abdomen. No autopsy was performed, and no suspect was ever sought in connection with the shooting.

Clark was deeply affected by Marin's death and his belief that he'd never have the chance to be a father. He never got the chance to find out what might have become of him and Marin, but he took their last conversation to heart and decided to trust that she knew what she was talking about when she said she saw something between him and Lois. Over time he began to realize she was right, and he worked toward the day when he could see Lois again, though he knew she wouldn't recognize him.

**Chloe and Lois**

Chloe, though deeply conflicted, convinced Lois and her doctors that her amnesia must have something to do with the contusion on the back of her head, though Lois of course could not remember how she got it. Though unsettled by losing three months of her memory, Lois persevered through her years at Met U, thanking God for spellcheck every step of the way.

Chloe followed in Lois' academic footsteps, but with considerably better spelling, and went on to work for the Inquisitor. The Planet had been her dream, but the Inquisitor allowed her to fill a duel role: rag reporter and Superman spinner. As years passed Clark found it necessary to have someone behind the scenes who could cover his tracks now and then, and Chloe was exceptionally good at that. She was also his conduit to Lois (which she didn't mind, having long since resolved her feelings for Clark and settled into a solid relationship with a colleague at the Inquisitor - one who had never been exposed to kryptonite, so was in no way a meteor freak), keeping him informed until the day he showed up for work at The Daily Planet.

**Epilogue II: Lois and Clark**

_Adapted from a scene from Superman: The Movie_

"Okay, this is it Mac - the Daily Planet," the cab driver announced as he slowed to a stop in front of the Metropolis paper's headquarters.

Clark swallowed past the nervous lump in his throat as he climbed out of the backseat and absently overpaid the driver. _Yep… this is it_. He drew in a deep breath of the city air and gave the building a lingering once-over before he stepped through the door. Before his nerves had a chance to catch up, he found he'd been ushered in to the office of the paper's editor, Perry White, where he was perched on a chair listening to what was surely an oft-spouted monologue for new employees about good journalism.

"A good reporter doesn't get great stories, a good reporter makes them great," Mr. White was saying as a familiar brunette barged through the door behind him with a camera-toting youth in tow.

"Chief, here's that story on the East side murder case. The way I see it it's a banner headline, front page, maybe my picture right there…" the brunette rattled with no regard for what her editor may have been doing before she'd interrupted.

Clark's heart turned a somersault in his chest. He knew she'd be there, but seeing her like that, so abruptly and without warning… _As if it could be any other way_. He smiled nervously, and was thankful that it went unnoticed.

"There's only one 'p' in rapist," Mr. White said in response to the reporter. "Lois Lane, say hello to Clark Kent."

"Hello Miss Lane, how are - " Clark stood and held out a hand in greeting, but Lois breezed by as if he were a coat rack.

"Remember my dynamite expose…" she continued, following Mr. White to his desk as he struggled to open a bottle of Perrier.

Clark stood awkwardly for a moment and pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose.

The bow-tie wearing young man who'd followed Lois into the office stepped up to greet Clark instead. "How ya doin,' Jimmy Olsen, photographer."

"Oh hi, Clark Kent, nice to meet you." Clark replied with a steady handshake, though it was only a moment before he looked over his shoulder again at Lois.

"…It's got everything, it's got sex, it's got violence, it's got the ethnic angle…" Lois was still rambling on, persistent as ever.

"Yeah, so does a lady wrestler with a foreign accent. Kent, can you open this?" Mr. White asked, holding the still unopened bottle of Perrier out to Clark.

"Oh, sure Mr. White." He took the bottle and made quite a show of having trouble turning the cap.

"This could be the basis for a whole series of articles. 'Making Sense of Senseless Killings,' by Lois Lane." Lois somewhat distractedly grabbed the bottle from Clark and tapped the top on the edge of the desk to break the seal, then handed it back to Clark, all without looking at him or pausing her diatribe. "I mean, we get psychologists and -"

"Lois, Lois, you're pushing a bunch of rinky-dink tabloid garbage. The Daily Planet has a reputation - "

Clark had finally managed to get the bottle open, only to have it spray all over him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shake it up like that!" Lois cried, finally shifting her focus off of her article long enough to notice that there actually was another person in the room.

"Of course not Lois, why would anyone want to make a total stranger look like a fool." Clark tried to smile winningly after his quip, having momentarily forgotten that they had no precedence for banter, as far as she was concerned.

She looked back at him blankly and smiled wanly.

"I'll take that," Mr. White interjected, holding out his hand for the bottle.

"I'm sorry Mr. White." Clark apologized as he handed the bottle over and tried to wipe off his hands.

"Olsen!" Mr. White shouted suddenly. "Why am I paying you when I should have you arrested for loitering? Go get Mr. - "

"Kent."

"…a towel. Move kid, move!"

"Right Chief!"

"And make mine black and no sugar," Mr. White switched gears to a coffee order as Lois continued to read her article out loud to herself.

"Right Chief!"

"And don't call me sugar!"

"Right Chief," Jimmy called over his shoulder as he exited and passed on the order to someone else, adding a cup of tea with lemon for himself.

Mr. White moved to usher Lois and Clark out the door. "Uh, Lois, why don't you take Kent out to meet everybody, huh? Just introduce him around, he's starting at the paper today. I'm giving him the city beat."

Lois hadn't really been listening, so at first the chief's comments didn't quite register. "Chief, that's my beat!" she exclaimed when the realization hit her, then turned on her heel and charged back into the office.

"Lois," Mr. White replied in exasperation. "Clark Kent may seem like just a mild-mannered reporter, but listen - not only does he know how to treat his editor-in-chief with the proper respect, not only does he have a snappy, punchy prose style, but he is - in my forty years in this business - the fastest typist I've ever seen!" He again pushed her out the door.

"Excuse me - " Clark tried to interject.

"Here, you forgot my article." Lois interrupted, charging back into the office once more.

Clark timidly stood in the open doorway as Lois exited. "Oh, um, excuse me Mr. White, I was wondering if, um, you could arrange for half my salary to be sent to this address on a weekly basis."

"Your bookie, right?" Lois interposed.

"My what?"

Lois grinned at Mr. White. "Don't tell me, he sends a check every week to his sweet gray-haired old mother."

"Actually she's a red-head," Clark corrected with a shrug.

Lois looked taken aback. Mr. White wordlessly took the address and retreated back into his office, closing the door behind him.

"Well," Clark offered as a segue, standing awkwardly in front of Lois. _At least this time I'm not naked_.

"Any more at home like you?" Lois asked coyly.

"Ah, not really, no." Clark shook his head his head.

"Didn't think so." Lois muttered as she turned around. "Well, get yourself a desk over here…"

Clark had a little trouble focusing on her words as he followed behind her, but was brought back to reality by the startled look she gave him when he got a little too close as he passed behind her to get to his desk. He sheepishly took his seat and began to arrange his belongings on the desktop, furtively sneaking glances at his new colleague, seated across from him. His heart thumped and his head was swimming, but he couldn't suppress his hopeful smile.

_Yep_, he thought as he glanced once again at Lois and tucked his press pass into his pocket. _This is it_.


End file.
